Wanda Trudel says she’s been losing sleep after a $2,000 Interac e-transfer she sent to her son at the end of September didn’t end up in his account, likely because his email was hacked. Her son, Eric Trudel, says they’ve tried multiple avenues to try to retrieve the funds, but no one seems able to help them. Wanda often sends e-transfers to Eric so he can take care of her rent and other expenses. “My bills have to be paid, I’ve got prescriptions [for] pills that I have to take,” Wanda said. Wanda is in her 70s, is recently widowed, and is dealing with the early stages of dementia, so some things have become too hard to manage on her own. “I do her grocery shopping for her, running around for the small necessities, whatever she needs,” Eric said. Wanda sent her last e-transfer to Eric on Sept. 29 from her TD Bank account. She received confirmation on her phone that the $2,000 had been sent to Eric. Then, she got an email confirming the transfer had been successfully deposited by a stranger named “Kelly Leroux.” CTV News has verified Wanda entered Eric’s email address correctly, but Eric said he never received the funds in his TD account. He did, however, get a strange email related to a transaction with Kelly Leroux’s PC Financial bank account. On closer inspection, that account appeared to be linked to Eric’s email address. “I was lucky. I grabbed a couple of screenshots, but as fast as emails were coming in, they were being deleted just as fast,” Eric recalled. He believes someone gained access to his email, opened a bank account using his email address at PC Financial, then redirected his mother’s funds to that new account. He and his mom went to their TD branch in Verdun and were told the auto-deposit function had been turned off on Eric’s account days earlier. He said the manager recommended filing a claim with the bank’s fraud department, but that claim was declined, with TD citing “The person responsible for the fraudulent activity had access to your confidential financial information.” They appealed the decision but their appeal was also declined, with no further explanation. When they contacted the Montreal police service (SPVM), they say they were told a fraud investigation couldn’t be opened because it was the bank’s responsibility to investigate since it sent the funds to the wrong account. “It’s extremely depressing to know that your bank can’t help you out,” Wanda said. “I mean, you know, you go to the bank, you go to the police, you go back to the bank, and nobody seems to know. ‘Oh, no, it’s not, fraud. Not fraud.’ Well, what do you think fraud is then?” Jeff Horncastle, a client and communications outreach officer with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, said the organization has received reports of similar cases. “The victim may have been part of a breach in the past where a password that he utilized on a specific website or platform, along with his email address was exposed,” Horncastle said. “It gave them the ability to access his email account, and from there they can potentially access or change his auto-deposit without necessarily getting into his bank account.” In an email, Interac told CTV News the e-transfer service remains safe and that incidents like these occur outside of its network. “Changes to an Interac e-transfer autodeposit registration require confirmation through the email address associated with the registration. Interception fraud can occur when someone gains unauthorized access to that email account and redirects a payment without the account holder’s knowledge.” The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre recommends using strong unique passwords for all accounts, periodically checking your email account to verify when and where you’ve logged on, to check your rules and settings, and to set up multi-factor authentication. It adds that authentication apps are the most secure option. TD says it can’t share details of the case because it remains under review and it will follow up with the client once the review is complete. In the meantime, Eric and Wanda are changing their passwords and beefing up their security settings. Eric wonders if his mother’s funds will ever be returned. “It’s not $60,000. It’s not $20,000. It’s $2,000 from a woman who’s on pension, a fixed income,” Eric said, “and that’s her monthly budget.”
