Suspicion: Innovation Federal Credit Union warns of phone scam

“They lean into the ones that are working…and so you have to refresh the public on how to defend themselves,” he said.

In this case, scammers are calling people and they’re pretending to be Innovation or Royal Bank or whoever that is,” said Cinq-Mars.

“Basically, they’re taking a bit of a stab in the dark,” he added, noting they try to play off information gleaned from the conversations with the unsuspecting customer.

They will also take the time to do research to tailor the attack. For example, if a customer follows banking organizations on social media, they are able to use that to help pry information out.

“People actually volunteer it quite easily without realizing that they’re doing that.”

To protect yourself from becoming a victim, Innovation said they have tips, which are especially important if the customer is on the receiving end of the call.

“That’s what we try to do with our members, is try to help them understand when to be suspicious and what some of those good behaviours are,” Cinq-Mars said referring to auto deposits on e-transfers, alerts, and one-time authentication passwords.

The scammers know this and have started incorporating them into the attacks.

“They call on you, they try to coerce you or pressure you – that’s a very consistent thing, that pressure and it should always be a red flag,” he said.

Some of the activities they will try and put pressure on include setting up your multi-factor authentication or e-transfer auto deposits.

“We do it a different way, right? We try to help people through their online and their mobile banking to do it, versus we don’t contact people to do it.”

The same rules apply if you receive a link in an email or a text as banks will not do that. Customers are told to call the number or use the link on the website.

“We don’t give you a shortcut,” he said.

A scam alert was issued yesterday by Innovation Federal Credit Union. (Innovation Federal Credit Union/Facebook)

According to Vishnu Singh, vice-president of member experience, it’s not just Innovation but all customers regardless of financial institutions.

“It’s all the general public that these fraudsters will pick an area, target an area and start – take the three digit of the area code and start randomly picking at the computer to pick a bunch of numbers and reach out to folks.”

Singh said if clients find themselves in a suspicious circumstance, just hang up.

“Nobody’s going to get upset at you,” he said adding members can just call the institution’s number.

In the city, scammers may change tactics and go after larger banks.

Singh called it a ying and yang approach.

“We provide tips to our members about fraudulent attempts right so of course if you’re following Innovation, you’ll get those tips and understand what, where, what’s happening and have the latest information we need to provide to you,” he said.

Meanwhile, the alerts aren’t issued when they see spikes but also when there is an industry-wide spike.

“If we get notices from the RCMP or from the government or if we get notices from other credit unions or other banks, we’ll pursue those as well,” said Cinq-Mars.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

On BlueSky: juleslovett.bsky.social

by Julia Lovett-Squires

Suspicion: Innovation Federal Credit Union warns of phone scam

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