Phone fraud on the rise in the Townships

Recently a resident of Brigham got a phone call “from the CIBC” saying that someone had charged $1400 to her credit card. They knew her name, phone number, and her birth date. She was asked for her credit card number to “confirm that it was the one that had been hacked”. At that point alarm bells went off. The card number was not given by the Brigham resident and she hung up. She then called her CIBC branch in Cowansville. She was not the first person to have had this kind of call. If it is happening to CIBC customers it may be happening to other bank customers as well. Beware! Hopefully the CIBC will put up a notice in its branches about possible phone fraud.

Another type of phone fraud involves people hacking into local lines. If you hear a weird noise on your phone, hang up right away.

Someone may be trying to get access to your phone line. A Sutton resident got a phone call saying that she had won a free cruise and she was asked for her credit card number to cover a few fees. She refused but took note of the phone number as it was a local number. After she hung up, she called the number that had appeared on her phone and she reached a lady in Granby whose voice was in no way like the caller who had offered the free cruise. Upon reaching the police, the Sutton resident was told that hackers are linking fraudulent calls to local phone numbers to mask their origins.

If you receive a call from your bank, never give out any information. Call your local branch right away. If you get a call about having “won something that seems too good to be true”, do not give out any information whatsoever. If you can record the number of the caller please write it down and give it to the police as that person’s phone number could have been hacked.

Going through COVID-19 is bad enough. Now there are these types of issues to be aware of too.