By Monique Chiasson and Joey Smith
BROOKFIELD - A debit card skimming scam is creating a stir in this South Colchester community.
Several people in the Brookfield area have been victims of debit card fraud, resulting in thousands of dollars being stolen from accounts from various banking institutions.
"I'm pretty upset. I don't make much money and this really just about did me in," said Brookfield's Carl Sutherland, who had more than $400 taken from his account last week by fraudsters. "Anytime is a bad time, but especially at Christmas. But I just scrape by anyway so this was a real bad thing because I wonder if I'm gonna be able to meet my bills."
Sutherland, 54, said he discovered he was ripped off after making a transaction at a bank machine last weekend.
"I'm blaming the person that's doing this, but if your money's not safe in the bank, well maybe we gotta do what the old boys did - just stash it in the woods somewhere in a milk can."
Sutherland, an RBC client, said he has been in contact with his bank, and was told he will be reimbursed.
Trish Vardy, RBC spokeswoman, said she was notified of the scam, and said the bank is investigating.
"We have a dedicated team of fraud experts that certainly work very hard around the clock to ensure that if our clients are ever victimized by fraudulent activity that we take care of them as a high priority," she said. "We do reimburse our clients who have been victimized and we do whatever is needed to block unauthorized access to their funds."
A Brookfield woman, who wished to remain anonymous, had almost $900 stolen from her RBC bank account last week. She discovered the money was missing when she tried to make a purchase at a local department store and was denied because of insufficient funds.
"I was just horrified," she said. "I knew it (the money) was there, and it's the first time it's ever happened to me ... You're pretty upset, especially this time of year."
Ken Shea, president and CEO of the Heritage Credit Union, confirmed clients from his Upper Stewiacke branch were also victims of fraud over the past week.
"We had a number of cards that appeared to be of victims of that kind of activity, so we tried to isolate where it was coming from and we blocked some cards that would have been impacted," he said.
"They've been given back their funds and their accounts are now unlocked and they've got their new cards."
A Colchester County RCMP official told the Truro Daily News Thursday an official investigation opened yesterday upon hearing from Moneris, a point-of-sale, debit and credit card processing company based in Toronto.
Moneris informed the RCMP of 14 reported occurrences of debit card fraud between October and this week, however, speculation among Brookfield area residents indicates there have been upwards of 40 victims in the last week.
Cpl. Addie MacCallum said RCMP received only one complaint, from a Stewiacke resident early in the week, about missing bank funds but it's "unverified" if that call is related.
It's believed by Moneris, said MacCallum, those responsible for the crimes used electronic devices to retrieve bank and pin number information from bank machines and point-of-sale transactions, a process commonly known as skimming.
MacCallum said it's unclear where all the crimes occurred. He said there were reports of "people acting suspicious" near MacQuarries Pharmasave in Brookfield, however, MacCallum said the crimes were likely done on a larger scale.
"This is an organized crime group ... they move around," he said.
MacCallum advised anyone believing money is missing from their bank account should check with their bank to verify it's missing. They should then contact the police and also call police upon seeing suspicious behaviour.
