Text-message scam claims Manitoba Hydro has given you money

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This article was published 30/04/2018 (3101 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The old adage about something sounding too good to be true also holds true for pitches received via text message.

A text that was showing up on the display screens of Manitoba smartphones on Monday read “Manitoba Hydro sent you funds” with a link to click on. The message on the site for one person said they were to receive “193.44$ CAD.”

The scam was looking for unsuspecting Manitobans to release their banking information.

A Manitoba Hydro spokesman said the crown corporation received dozens of calls of inquiry by midday Monday. The linked website became unavailable well before noon.

Bruce Owen of Manitoba Hydro said, “It’s a scam. We think fewer and fewer people are falling prey to it. Most people with a cellphone now knows this stuff is spam and knows it is phishing. We have done a lot over the course of the last couple of years, getting the word out.”

New Canadians or young people, who may not necessarily know their rights as consumers, could fall victim. They also might not be sensitive to subtle typographical, grammatical or style errors, such as placing the dollar sign after the number, which is unusual.

While this one might have been new, Owen said it’s a variation of the same type of text scams people have been seeing over the course of the past couple of years.

In many cases, the scam is disseminated over social media, they are also sometimes effectively quashed over the same social media platforms they are initially distributed over.

“People know these things for what they are,” Owen said. “Then, they warn each other on social media and forward it on to law enforcement. This one will disappear — or has disappeared — and in two weeks, there will be another one.”

It’s not known precisely what the proportion is between messages sent and victims, but new Canadians and young people are likely most vulnerable. Owen believes a recurring door-to-door scam might be even more damaging.

That one has people knocking on doors purporting to be from Manitoba Hydro or citing some fictitious bylaw change affecting Manitoba Hydro such that people are pressured to buy new appliances such as furnace, water heaters or air conditioners at five to six times the price that reputable firms would charge.

“Unfortunately, this happens quite frequently,” Owen said.

“A person who is unfamiliar with these kinds of issues, like a new Canadian or a trusting elderly person, lets them in, they get downstairs to the basement and before you know it, they have signed on the bottom line to buy something.”

The door-to-door scam has started up again with the warmer weather. There are some jurisdictions in Canada where that sort of solicitation is illegal, but that is not the case in Manitoba.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca