For the amount of acting put into an attempt to fleece a West Vancouver senior out of tens of thousands of dollars, you’d think she must have been in a Hollywood movie.
Though the thieves’ plot of controlling a victim’s computer to make fraudulent bank transactions was featured in the 2024 film The Bee Keeper, for Patricia Morris, the scam attempt and her damaged pride are real.
On Jan. 30, Morris received an email from what appeared to be a PayPal employee by the name of Karla Nietzsche with a copy of a receipt for a $389.99 purchase for “McAfee” protection.
“Knowing that I had reluctantly used PayPal as a guest in a transaction to pay the sailing club membership [the previous] weekend, I thought, ‘Oh no. This triggered a 15-year-old protection policy I had through PayPal. I must stop the charge,’” said Morris, who is 75 years old.
So she called a number provided in the email message and spoke to someone on the phone, but the reception was poor.
Morris turned up her hearing aids and called back, this time speaking for an hour with a different male voice going by the name of Robert Crook.
Under the lie that he would be refunded for her purchase, Morris gave "Crook" control of her computer. After that, she said he performed “magic tricks” on the screen, showing her bank information.
During nearly three hours on the phone, Crook claimed that he had mistakenly refunded her US$38,999, instead of her supposed charge of $389.99.
“Actually, he said I made the mistake by putting in the wrong amount when the computer wouldn’t let me put in the right amount,” Morris said.
“Then he made his mistake transferring funds to my U.S. account. He needed my help to not lose his job which he has had for six years,” she said. “This was the emotional side story to the scam.”
Crook told her she had to go to the bank to wire the money back to him.
'I’ve been shaking my head for three weeks because I’m so embarrassed'
After speaking to a manager at her local TD Canada Trust branch, the bank employee froze all her accounts.
Morris said that in the time before her accounts were frozen, nearly $57,000 Canadian had been transferred by the scammer into her U.S. account. Thankfully it had been frozen before the cash could be transferred elsewhere.
The bank manager said she should have checked to see if it was a real call.
“He also told me this scam was in a recent movie The Bee Keeper,” Morris said.
She was charged $67 to scrub her laptop, and faced a $1,200 interest payment to put the funds back in her Canadian account.
While she was able to have the interest fee waived after nearly a month of meetings and frustrating phone calls, Morris said the incident has affected her pride.
“I’ve been shaking my head for three weeks because I’m so embarrassed,” she said. “I couldn’t take looking at my bank statement because it represented my mistake.”
Morris said she called police and filed a fraud report but hasn’t heard anything back.
As a result of her scamming experience, Morris said she'll never be sharing her computer screen again. “And not trusting anybody,” she said.
West Vancouver Police Department said it advises residents to exercise caution whenever they receive emails or other online messages, especially those requesting them to click a link or download a file.
"We can’t assume that a message is from the sender it claims to be, as scammers can present highly convincing information and misuse or manipulate company branding, logos, caller IDs, and email addresses to appear legitimate," said Suzanne Birch, spokesperson for WVPD.
"Residents should be especially wary when scammers are claiming there’s a sense of urgency or use other emotionally manipulative tactics," she said. "Instead, residents are urged to end the call and navigate directly to the official website and use the contact information provided there to confirm the legitimacy of the sender before opening attachments or downloading files."
Anyone suspicious about a communication they've received can call the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501. Anyone victimized is also encouraged to call West Van police at 604-925-7300 or to file a police report on the WVPD website.
This article has been updated with a statement from WVPD.
