Senior let down his online guard and hackers ripped him off for nearly $11,000

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This article was published 21/11/2023 (696 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg senior wants everyone to take cyber security seriously after hackers got into his email to take control of his cellphone, stole money from his bank account and racked up thousands of dollars in online and in-person purchases using his credit card.

Dennis Popkes said the thieves stole a total of $10,770.67 last December before he was able to stop them with help from credit card companies, banks and Bell MTS.

Popkes said he has since had his losses refunded to him.

“They even had chicken on me,” the 76-year-old said Tuesday. “They went to a KFC in Edmonton. They paid $19; they must have been hungry.”

Popkes said the hackers also spent $60 on gas at a 7-Eleven in that city.

“I asked how did that happen and (the bank) said you have mobile banking on your phone. They activated it and then used the cellphone as a bar code to buy things.”

Popkes said he first realized something was wrong was when he couldn’t use his phone. When he tried to access his email account, the Bell MTS webmail site wouldn’t accept the answer to his security question.

That’s when Popkes found out hackers had first got into his Bell MTS email account, changed his personal details and took information gleaned from it to fraudulently get a new SIM card in his name for their own phone.

From there, the thieves were then able to find out where he shopped online and where he did his banking, and go to the sites using his identity to make purchases or transfer money.

The thieves were able to steal everything they did on Dec. 6 between 2 a.m. and 1 p.m., which is when Popkes was able to get all of his accounts shut down.

“I used to have my credit card stored on my Amazon account (but) not anymore,” he said. “They hacked my PayPal account. They hacked every vendor I went to. I now type in the credit card number every time I buy something.

“It is inconvenient, but I know what I need to do now.”

According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, between Jan. 1 and June 30 this year, there were more than 21,000 victims of fraud with in excess of $283 million taken, compared to a total of more than 57,000 victims and $531 million lost in 2022.

The CAFC was able to help recover only $2.8 million in 2022.

Popkes said he has spoken to the Winnipeg Police Service about the experience.

A WPS spokeswoman confirmed the incident was investigated but couldn’t provide any details.

Bell MTS spokeswoman Morgan Shipley said the company also investigated once it was notified about the SIM card change.

“We were in communication with both the customer and the Winnipeg Police Service throughout the proceedings,” Shipley said.

“As a result of the investigation, Bell MTS improved a number of threat-detection defences, like password reset and email filtering protocols to help make our customer and business email accounts more secure.”

Shipley said Bell MTS will never contact a customer asking for personal information unless it’s responding to a call from a customer.

“If a customer notices a suspicious transaction on their account, they should immediately reach out to us,” she said.

“We have a team of dedicated experts that will be able to assist.”

Mathieu Manaigre, president and CEO of local computer support and services firm Avenir IT, said what happened to Popkes should serve as a reminder to people to be careful with their personal information.

“Was he practising good password etiquette?” Manaigre said. “Using best practices? Multi-factor authorization?

“We tell our clients whenever these platforms ask for names — like the maiden name of your mother — lie. Always lie. Facebook asks you quizzes like what is your mother’s name, so that information is out there and can be found.

“There are always people out there trying to outsmart you. People need to know how to handle their information.”

Popkes said one of the biggest ongoing inconveniences as a result of the experience is he no longer has the cellphone number he had since the 1990s.

But he said he has learned a lesson and is now extra-careful with everything he does online.

“I grew up in the beginning of the computer age,” he said. “When a security question asked my mom’s maiden name, I never thought twice about it and put it in. But a detective said he got that in 30 seconds by Googling; he found it in my mother’s obituary.

“They’re smart people. They could cure cancer if they wanted to.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca