My mom got a call from someone saying they were a bank employee and received a code on her phone – then she lost $15,000
A concerned daughter claimed her 81-year-old mother was the victim of fraudulent activity.
Laurie Johnson recalled an incident during a conversation with CTV News about a Bank of Montreal (BMO) scam in which her mother lost $15,000.
According to Johnson, her mother fell into a trap after receiving a one-time passcode from her bank that allowed a scammer claiming to be a BMO employee to gain access to her account.
The fraudster then used that code to log into her account and later sent $15,000 to an account in Bangladesh.
“She has never, and I have never, done a global money transfer,” Johnson told CTV News in March 2024.
“Wouldn’t they flag that and call, or just stop and try to find out if that was in fact done by the customer?” It seems like it’s too easy for that to happen.”
Laurie Johnson recalled an incident on CTV News about a Bank of Montreal (BMO) that her 81-year-old mother fell for
According to Johnson, the $15,000 was sent to a foreign bank account in Bangladesh and she has been trying to get the money back from her mother for at least two months.
Laurie Johnson recalled an incident on CTV News about a Bank of Montreal (BMO) that her 81-year-old mother fell for (photo: stock photo of a woman on her phone)
BMO was founded in Montreal, Quebec in the 19th century and is currently the oldest bank in Canada.
Are website reads that BMO’s purpose is “to courageously grow good in business and life.”
BMO provides personal and commercial banking, global markets and investment banking services to more than 10 million individuals.
Johnson’s mother is one of those individuals and despite her account being linked to that bank, her aggravated daughter is frustrated by the bank’s actions.
“She has been a Bank of Montreal customer for 60 years and so have I,” Johnson said.
“You would think that with all the profits they make they would be able to help their customers.”
Johnson now serves as her mother’s power of attorney and claims she has been trying to get her mother’s money back for months.
However, Johnson’s mother isn’t the only victim of a BMO scam.
Several BMO customers have shared their stories of being scammed and losing thousands of dollars to scammers in a group on WhatsApp
Ottawa resident Katya Feder told CTV News a similar scam story that happened to her in April 2023.
Feder claimed that she too was duped by a scammer who claimed to be a BMO employee while they were on the phone.
The incident started after the so-called employee called her to ask if a transaction to buy cryptocurrency from her account was legitimate.
“I said okay, great! They keep an eye on things at the bank. Great,” said Feder.
“Then she said, ‘We’re just going to verify your identity; we’re just going to send you a verification code.’
After repeating the code to the scammer, her account was compromised and she lost $14,500.
‘I was completely shocked. Stunned. “I mean, I was just in disbelief,” she said.
She added that other BMO customers have shared their own scam stories on a WhatsApp group.
The group was founded in January 2024 and features “several stories of fraud that occurred through their bank in various ways.”
Katya Feder told CTV News she lost $14,500 after a scammer claiming to be a BMO employee sent her a one-time passcode in April 2023. (Image: stock photo of a woman on her phone)
Christine and Kevin Avey of Norwich, Ontario, were also victims of fraud, and they didn’t like the answers BMO gave them about the problem.
A scammer asked Kevin to confirm his identity by entering a one-time password while trying to log into the BMO website.
He woke up the next day to find that $15,000 had been taken from them and deposited into an offshore account.
“I had only been making deposits into this account and this large transaction amount was allowed to go through without even notifying us or simply not allowing the transaction to be completed,” Christine wrote in an email to CTV News .
BMO responded to the couple’s complaints, but like Johnson, they were not happy with the bank’s response.
“BMO explained that if we did not give it to anyone, we had not taken reasonable care to protect our password,” Christine wrote.
“This appears to be the standard line that BMO is giving to their customers, rather than BMO implementing stricter security measures or perhaps a smaller limit on global transfers.”
The couple spoke to a local BMO manager and ultimately received $7,500 from the bank.
However, the manager claimed that the money was sent to them as an act of ‘good faith’ and that this was against the bank’s policy.
BMO has now warned its customers to take extra security measures so that they run less risk of being scammed.
Christine and Kevin Avey of Norwich, Ontario discovered that $15,000 had been withdrawn from their BMO account. Shortly afterwards, the Aveys received $7,500 from the bank. (Image: Stock photo of a couple looking at bills)
The bank said in their statement that it “encourages customers to be diligent in protecting their online and mobile credentials.”
Some suggestions from BMO include signing up for alerts to check bank accounts, frequently associated passwords and PINs, and never disclosing passwords and one-time passcodes.
“When a customer normally receives a one-time access code, it will be accompanied by the following message: ‘Warning: This code allows access to your accounts,'” the statement said.
‘Calls to request this could be a scam. If you receive a call, hang up and call the number on the BMO card.’
Daily Mail has contacted BMO for comment.