I fell for a very alarming phone scam this week. I received a call from “Rogers” advising me that someone was making changes to my account, that is changing the email, changing the email and ordering a new iPhone to be delivered to the new address. The caller was a woman who sounded harried. She spoke very quickly and had no accent. She told me she needed to restore the email on my account . First she sent me a Roger’s verification code. This didn’t seem weird as the bank also does this. Then she sent me a Google verification message with three numbers and told me which one to select. That’s where I went wrong! I stupidly complied. It was unlike any other Google verification as it had the three numbers. Shortly after she completed the call. Within minutes my phone lost its connection to the network. I called tech support and while I was on the line (from husband’s phone), that dropped off the network too. We live an hour away from the nearest store and spent the rest of the day on the phone issues. Replacement sims did not restore my iPhone 11, although my husband was able to restore his iPhone 13.
That was just the start. They were in my Google account, accessed passwords and as they had my phone number they could satisfy two factor authentication. They ordered gift cards on my Amazon account, requested a significant transfer of funds from my Questrade account, and placed other orders and applications. Interestingly from the information they stole they also acquired access to my husband’s outlook email. A real nightmare.
Just wanted to share this in hopes that others may learn from my experience.
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