ALDERGROVE STAR STAR Your Hometown Community Newspaper for over 54 Years
| Thursday, March 22, 2012
Dead Frog jumps D ffor ‘Big Decision’
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PPAGE 4
Scammers prey on computer novices
Finding the Way to Victory
By MONIQUE TAMMINGA Aldergrove Star
LINDA McRAE PHOTO
Kody and owner Shelley Fraser earned rosettes in Advanced Games Dog of Canada category at the Q-Ball Dog Agility Trial, March 9-11, held at Cloverdale. Q-Ball’s next trial is on April 21 at the Q-Ball training arena at 27882 Quinton Ave. in West Abbotsford. More inside this issue.
Alleged fraudster caught on camera Aldergrove Star
Langley RCMP is seeking help from the public to identify a person of interest in a recent fraud investigation that included circumstances similar to the familiar ‘grandparent’ scam. On February 21, a 90-yearold Aldergrove man greeted a male claiming to be a friend of his nephew’s. The suspect told the senior that his nephew needed $250 to repair his boat and the money would be paid back later that evening. He
then escorted the senior to the pect is described as Caucasian, bank where the money was in his late 30s approximately withdrawn. 5’8” tall, 150 lbs., Once the suswith mediumpect had the cash length straight he simply walked brown hair, and away, causing the wearing blue jeans senior to become and a t-shirt. suspicious. Later Police were able that day he called to obtain surveilhis nephew, queslance footage from tioned him about the bank and ask the circumstances the public to review RCMP IMAGE the still photo in an and realized he’d Suspect in Aldergrove attempt to identify been duped. fraud case. The male susthe male pictured.
If you are able to assist police with this investigation, please call Langley RCMP at 604532-3200. Should you need to remain anonymous, please call Crimestoppers. There are four ways to leave an “anonymous tip” with Crime Stoppers: phone 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), type www.solvecrime. ca, text BCTIP and your message to CRIMES (274637) or via Facebook at www.facebook.com/metrovancouvercrimestoppers
Senior citizen Sam Kenny is not easily duped. But a woman claiming to be from Microsoft security almost scammed him out of $100 and his credit card number after allegedly fixing a problem he was having with his PC. When a woman called saying she was from Microsoft and was going to fix his “error” message problems on his computer, it seemed legitimate. Kenny was having problems with error messages on his PC and the “Microsoft” employee also confirmed the serial number for his personal computer. She asked him to perform a few keystrokes to unearth this serial number and voila, there it was in his computer. “That seemed like it was the real deal,” Kenny said. Kenny told her he was still skeptical and she agreed, telling him that there are a lot of scammers out there and you can never be too careful. She had a Eastern European accent and it sounded like she was calling from a call centre somewhere. The phone number on call display showed “unknown.” Following a few more instructions, it seemed like she was cleaning up the problems on his computer. A message on his email arrived showing him a bill for $119. The Langley senior told the woman to hold on, and he would go get his Visa card. “Mercifully, the line went dead,” he said. At that very moment, his smart meter was being installed and that may have contributed to the line going dead. In the meantime, Kenny’s wife checked out Mercaway, the Paypal-type billing system, on Google. This was the one the caller wanted them to use. There were several warnings about the scam, enough to inform the Kennys not to proceed any further. Kenny unplugged his computer, but that didn’t stop the scammer from phoning his home at least another 10 times and emailing him, asking him to pick up his phone or answer her email. “I felt like I was being stalked electronically, in my own home,” he said. Aldergrove Source manager Craig Anderson, who checked over Kenny’s computer for malware, said this Microsoft scam has been making the rounds among many of his customers. He said a couple of customers did give out their credit card numbers, and their credit cards were used. “I’ve been called myself,” said Anderson. “They target people who don’t know a lot about computers and they claim to be Windows security or Microsoft security. They tell the person to go to their event viewer and it shows all these errors,” he explained. But those errors can be found on a brand new computer and aren’t viruses. “This is how they convince people,” he said.
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