Back From A Wedding In Fernie, British Columbia With A Scam Story To Tell

On June 30th we flew to Calgary, Alberta, to attend our nephew’s wedding in Fernie, British Columbia. At the best of times, air travel followed by a long drive can be disconcerting. However, this trip started with the unexpected, an attempt to steal credit card information and our money.

My wife and I are members of Air Miles, a rewards program that allows us to collect miles and redeem them for merchandise or travel. We had enough points to book a rental car to use to do sightseeing through the Rocky Mountains stopping at picturesque small towns along the way. Our end destination would have us ride a ski lift to the top of a mountain in Fernie, B.C. to witness the wedding of our nephew before heading back to Calgary and home.

Everything went well on the flight from Toronto. We picked up the one bag we had for travel and headed to get our confirmed car rental at the Calgary airport. That’s when things went wrong.

I have been subjected to attempted telephone scams in the past. One was a call from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) telling me I owed the government more than $1,700 CDN in unpaid taxes and that unless I wired the money immediately, police would be at my door within the hour to arrest me. I asked the “so-called” CRA agent for file details, some of which he knew, others which he didn’t. I asked to speak to his supervisor and for a number to call back. He hung up. Needless to say, no police came calling.

This scam in Calgary was different. When we approached the car rental area there was an enormous lineup. Why? Because an airline strike by one of Canada’s large carriers had left people stranded and they were trying to rent cars to get home or to their destinations. We talked to people ahead of us who had been standing in line for over two hours.

Like many would do in this situation, I did a Google search to get the customer service phone number for the car rental company. A toll-free number appeared at the top of the results. I didn’t think twice and called it. An agent answered and asked for my rental confirmation number. He told me that my booking had been cancelled. I said no one from the car company had informed us. He apologized and offered to help by referring me to another car rental agency. All I had to do was cover a $99.00 booking fee with my credit card. I would then pay the balance of $486.00 for the rental to the agents at the desk.

As it happened I was standing near that rental desk and paused the phone conversation to ask if they had cars. I was told they did not accept walkup customers. I relayed that information to the service agent on the phone. He apologized again and said he could fix the problem by referring me to another company accepting walkup bookings. The cost, however, would be more for the deposit and the balance.

It was only then that I realized that the Google Search number I had called was not the car rental agency’s helpline and that I needed to hang up. I escaped being taken. In the end, we rented from another car agency at the airport and paid market rates for our six-day getaway.

Online and Phone Fraud is an Epidemic 

Statistics show that telephone and online fraud are dramatically on the rise. Phony numbers come up in Google searches. Phony numbers appear in emails and short messages. Phone calls from unfamiliar numbers and even ones that have identifiable names are often coming from scammers. Although I have safeguards on my smartphone, for every call where I don’t recognize the caller, only a fraction are caught and labelled suspected spam.

How much of this type of fraud is happening? In an article appearing last April in The Globe and Mail, Marsha Lederman described her personal rewards card scam experience which motivated her to study the problem. She quoted from a 2023 report describing the state of scams in Canada and globally, calling it a “digital epidemic.”

That report included a survey of 989 Canadians with 75% reporting they had encountered scams monthly and an average loss per successful scam amounting to $2,406 CDN. The same survey noted that 69% of victims never reported the incidents to law enforcement.

A May 2, 2023, Canadian Press article on this subject noted that Canadians were being targeted more aggressively than Americans. It reported in 2022, 90,377 fraud cases, between 5 and 10% being victimized, and more than $530 million CDN stolen.

What about fake customer numbers coming up in Google searches which was my recent experience?

Scam call centres are on the rise states Michelle Couch-Frieman, a consumer report and ombudsman. With 90% of consumer searches using Google, scammers are creating call centre web IDs to get people to call illegitimate customer support sites where they are asked to share credit card numbers and reservation and account details.

Couch-Frieman notes “The scammers represent themselves as customer service for airlines, hotel reservations, booking agents, technical support for various software, popular streaming entertainment, tax support and more.” She describes these fake sites as offshore warehouses filled with agents whose goal is to trick consumers and that they are on the rise.

She notes that scammers often appear at the top of the search results page because they pay Google to be there. Google gives advertisers preference and previously labelled these listings as advertising until recently.

A Final Word

Since returning home I have contacted the rental car agency which has agreed to reimburse our reward miles and the difference in the the money we paid for the last-minute car rental we had to make.

The wedding, by the way, was fantastic. The Rocky Mountains were spectacular. The venue on the mountaintop provided a vista overlooking the town of Fernie in the distance. And just as the groom and bride were saying their vows, two Bald Eagles soared behind them in a mating flight as if it were choreographed. The scene and scenery were hard to beat.