ICBC warns about text scam impersonating company

A surge in scam texts pretending to be from ICBC has prompted a warning from the Crown corporation.

On Tuesday, Shauna Jimmie received a text claiming to be from ICBC, outlining that she had an unresolved traffic fine.

She was initially taken aback.

“It looks very professional,” said Jimmie.

She told CTV News she wracked her brain wondering if she had accidentally run a red light.

However, Jimmie said she looked at the text more closely, and that’s when she saw the red flags. The hyperlink to ICBC’s website wasn’t highlighted, among other parts of the message that rang some internal alarm bells. She realized it was a scam text.

“There’s so many people out there that would fall for that,” Jimmie said.

Greg Harper, a spokesperson for ICBC, says the insurer is aware of these fraudulent texts.

“We would never text our customers asking for their identity or seeking payment via links in a text,” he said.

Harper emphasized that those who receive the messages should immediately delete them. He added ICBC is also working with a cybersecurity team to report and remove fraudulent websites.

Mike Agerbo, a tech expert, said even he received a text claiming to be ICBC on Thursday. Agerbo explained that bad actors have become more sophisticated, and the dead giveaways like poor grammar or misspellings in scam messages from the past aren’t there anymore.

“With AI now, they are perfect, and they can also craft and specialize them for each individual,” said Agerbo.

Agerbo says the best course of action with these types of messages is not to click on any links and to delete them immediately.