Ontario mother loses $2,500 to text scammer pretending to be daughter
CTV
An Ontario mother lost $2,500 to a scammer pretending to be her daughter asking for help in late April.
An Ontario mother lost $2,500 to a scammer pretending to be her daughter asking for help in late April.
“I thought it was her. I thought she was in trouble and I needed to help her,” said Erin McInerney of Ajax, who added, “my daughter has an usual name and it had the correct spelling so I thought for sure it was her."
The text messages claimed McInerney’s daughter’s phone broke and she had a new one with a new phone number which wasn't set up with the bank yet.
That’s when she asked her mother to e-transfer her money that she would borrow from her to pay some bills that were due.
"So she asked me to do that for her and she would reimburse (me). So that's what I did,” said McInerney.
But after McInerney e-transferred $2,500 she didn’t hear back from her daughter. Later that day she decided to call her daughter's original phone number and she answered, said everything was fine and that she knew nothing about the text messages.
That’s when McInerney realized she had been scammed.
