Achi news desk-
Carole Lemay first opened an account with the Bank of Montreal when she was in her early twenties.
Now 75, Lemay says she was shocked and frustrated by the bank’s security measures after cybercriminals accessed her account and stole $15,000.
It all started on September 7, 2022, around 3:45 pm
She received a call from someone claiming to be calling on behalf of Amazon Prime, telling her she needed to update her payment method. Lemay says she has never had Amazon Prime and she suspected the man on the phone was a scammer so she hung up the phone, turned off her computer, and drove straight to the bank.
About 15 minutes after receiving the call, Lemay and her husband were at the BMO branch in Barrhaven. Lemay says they were talking to a bank teller around 4:05pm
“They said, ‘No, all your money is there but we’ll give you new cards’. They gave us a new debit card, a new MasterCard and we changed the password and PIN ,” said Lemay.
“We met the assistant manager and she said, ‘Don’t worry, all your money is there. You’re safe.’ So we came back home and I go into my computer and there’s no more money.”
Someone had accessed her accounts, stealing $11,000 of her savings. Another $4,000 was transferred from her credit card to her savings account before it was also transferred.
Lemay says that after discovering that she had been robbed, she immediately returned to the bank.
“I said, ‘How could that have happened? We were here half an hour ago.’ They said ‘Well, it’s a global transmission and we can’t stop it.’ I said, ‘What do you mean you can’t stop it’?”
The money was sent overseas via BMO’s Global Money Transfer feature. An online feature that allows customers to send money overseas within minutes.
Global Money Transfer was introduced by the bank in December 2021.
Since then, it seems to have become an opportunity for cyber criminals looking to lock in a quick payday. CTV News has heard from dozens of victims of bank fraud in recent weeks, most of whom withdrew money from their accounts through Global Money Transfer.
For Lemay, a Global Money Transfer for thousands of dollars does not match his decades long banking history with the bank.
She says she was shocked that the bank did not flag the transaction or give any time to prevent the money from being sent to scammers.
“They didn’t even question it. I mean, I’ve been with the bank for 52 years and I’ve never had a transaction like this. Never,” Lemay said.
“Wouldn’t that ring a bell that $15,000 is being taken out? Don’t they have safeguards?”
Lemay and her husband reported the incident to the bank and an investigation was launched.
By the end of November, BMO had reached a final decision.
Lemay was not to receive any compensation because the bank found that it did not adequately protect her account information. Exactly how the scammers gained access to her account has not been conclusively explained but the bank says there is no way the fraudulent transaction could have gone through without Lemay’s bank card number, password, and the one-time pass codes.
Because of that, BMO essentially told Lemay that she shouldn’t have protected her account, which, under the terms of her banking agreement, lays the blame at her feet.
BMO branch in Ottawa. (Dave Charbonneau/CTV News Ottawa)Lemay remains adamant that she never shared her password, PIN or any one-time pass codes with anyone. Not even her husband.
“John didn’t even know my password. I would never give it to anyone,” he said.
“I had to look it up because they were strange letters and symbols that meant nothing.”
Dissatisfied with the outcome of BMO’s investigation, Lemay approached the Ombudsman for Banking and Investment Services (OBSI) to have the third-party dispute resolution service review her complaint as well as the way the bank investigated the matter.
Despite being unable to explain exactly how Lemay’s account was fraudulently accessed, the OBSI reached exactly the same conclusion as the bank. She was not to receive any compensation because she must not have protected her information.
Lemay has since left BMO for another bank.
It’s a conclusion that has become common for BMO customers who have fallen victim to bank fraud.
According to the OBSI 2023 annual report, there were 2,719 consumer complaints of various types against the banks covered by the OBSI.
Of those, 1,403 were from BMO customers.
According to the OBSI 2022 annual report, BMO received only 331 complaints the previous year.
Vanessa Iafolla, PhD, has a doctorate in criminology. She runs Anti-Fraud Intelligence Consulting, which offers financial crime consultancy and support for victims and lawyers. She says the increase in complaints is something that stands out.
“It suggests to me that something critical is happening within BMO. Maybe there’s technology that isn’t working as BMO would have intended, maybe customer education isn’t happening as extensively as it should.
“There is smoke. There is a fire somewhere. The question is what is the cause of the fire?”
Iafolla says she has been busy with consumer issues from people who have been victimized by bank fraud.
“Right now I’m hearing about people with BMO who are being victimized because of this global money payment issue or this fraud that’s going through their accounts where they’re losing money through the this service that BMO offers,”
“These things sometimes come in waves or trends and so, at least with BMO at the moment, that’s what I see coming into my inbox.”
She says all banking systems should have some form of protection to prevent these types of fraudulent transactions from going through within minutes.
“You need some sort of stop in the system so if someone accidentally sends money to the wrong person or someone abuses someone else’s account, there’s a pause or break so people can say ‘wait a minute, hold on, what’s going on?”
“One of the things I regularly hear from BMO clients is that they’re not being alerted when this global money payout happens from their accounts. That’s worrying, especially if that for the first time this has happened or if the money being sent is very substantial,” said Iafolla.
“If it’s something you haven’t done before or it’s completely out of character for the type of account activity a person is doing, many clients ask, ‘Why didn’t BMO ask to me was this a legitimate transaction? I get these alerts from my Visa card; I’m getting these warnings from my MasterCard, why not?’ So, there’s something up here.”
CTV News has requested an interview with a BMO representative on several occasions, but the bank has not asked anyone questions.
We have also requested data from BMO showing the amount of fraudulent activity reported through the bank’s Global Money Transfer feature but BMO did not provide that information.
In an email, a BMO representative tells CTV News “It’s extremely important to keep your information safe from fraudsters, and there are some simple practices that can help.”
- Make sure your password is unique to your bank account and don’t share your password with anyone.
- Do not click on suspicious links as they may be malicious and enable illegal access to your phone or computer.
- If a bank representative contacts you by text, email or phone asking for personal account information, hang up and call back using the number listed on the back of your card.
