‘Do you know how long I had to work to make that money?’ How an Oakville man lost $750K to a fake website

While looking for a better interest rate on his GICs, an Oakville man was fooled by a “look-alike” website. Pat Foran reports for Consumer Alert.

Criminals are constantly trying to find new ways to steal your money. The latest scam? Creating fake websites that will pop up in a Google search in hopes of getting you to enter your personal information.

CTV News spoke to one Ontario senior who lost most of his life savings after searching online to find the best interest rate to invest in GICs.

“I’m devastated. $750,000 is a lot of money,” said 82-year-old Walter Yamka of Oakville.

“I thought I was on the PC Financial website.”

Yamka said it was last October when he had $750,000 worth of GICs mature and decided to search online to find the best interest rate possible.

He said he went to Google and typed in ‘best rates for GICs’ and was taken to a webpage for PC Financial and then called the number on the website.

“I said, ‘I can come up with $750,000′ and [the person on the phone] said, ‘We can give you a 6.5 per cent interest rate on a GIC,’ which I thought was great,” said Yamka.

Yamka was sent documents with PC Financial letterhead and he was given a direct phone line to deal with someone who would help him make the purchase.

He then went to his CIBC bank branch and asked them to transfer the money to purchase the GICs.

However, it turned out the website was a fake and he had been scammed out of $750,000.

Yamka said he later found out that criminals had been using the names of actual PC Financial employees and impersonating them.

“They sent me a graph showing that in one year I would have $798,000 dollars. But now, I got zero. Nothing,” said Yamka.

He believes his bank should have known the website was a scam due to what he said were red flags, including that the money was transferred to a bank account that was not associated with PC Financial.

“When you’re dealing with that amount of money and transferring it, the bank should confirm the receiver is legitimate,” said Yamka.

‘Deciphering fact from fiction is getting even more difficult’

PC Financial has a warning on its website about the GIC scam and told CTV News in a statement, “PC Financial does not promote or sell GICs in person, over the phone or through email.”

CTV News reached out to CIBC and a spokesperson said, “This is a very unfortunate situation which highlights the importance of being suspicious when contacted by unknown parties and confirming details before authorizing a transaction. We work hard to protect our clients, including seniors, from fraud.”

“We have processes and controls in place and our team is trained to ask questions when a client is performing a large transaction, which we did in this case. If, despite these controls, a client authorizes a transaction, it would be processed as per their request.”

Cybersecurity experts say criminals will pay search engines to pop up first in online searches and that search engines do not vet companies to make sure they are legitimate.

“These scams are becoming that much more sophisticated where deciphering fact from fiction is getting even more difficult,” said Ritesh Kotak, a cybersecurity analyst.

Kotak said criminals can create websites and documents that are almost indistinguishable from the real thing, and he believes banks should be doing more to protect their clients.

“I think there is a responsibility on financial institutions to make sure the money is being transferred to a legitimate account,” said Kotak.

Yamka said losing so much money has been disastrous for his finances.

“$750,000! Do you know how long I had to work to make that money?,” said Yamka.

Yamka can still file a complaint with the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (OBSI). Anyone who has a problem with a bank and is not satisfied with the outcome can use the ombudsman to review their case.