An Okotoks business owner is out thousands of dollars after her business bank account was drained this week.
Roxane Scott, owner of Heart and Healing in Okotoks, said she lost $17,300 after somebody was able to change her banking passwords and access her account.
Scott was tipped off that something wasn’t right when she got an email from her bank, stating that her banking password had been changed.
She was on a camping trip and out of cellphone range when the email was sent, so she didn’t get it until she returned on Sept. 6.
"When I got onto Wi-Fi, that email rolled into my phone,” Scott said. “It said that there was a password reset, a successful password reset, done on my bank account.”
She tried to call her bank, but her phone wouldn’t work, and by then her bank was closed for the day, she said.
When she took her phone to get fixed, she was told it looked like her SIM card had been cloned.
Scott thinks somebody cloned the SIM card and got her banking information and two-factor authentication codes, allowing them to clean out the account on Sept. 5.
The following day, a cheque was cashed for another $5,000 from the account, putting it in overdraft.
She has opened a fraud file with the phone company and the bank but said she doesn’t have a lot of hope the money will be returned.
“Because the bank says, ‘Maybe your password wasn't strong enough,’ they've mentioned that at one point,” she said.
There is a seven- to 10-day waiting period to determine if the bank can recover or return the money.
She’s thankful that her business rent isn’t due until the end of the month, but said it’s being left up to her to figure out how to stay afloat.
“I’m in a pickle,” she said. “My business bank account is in a negative balance, and the bank won’t help me.
“They won’t lend me any money, they won’t give me a line of credit.”
The incident has been reported to RCMP.
“I’m concerned about this cloning thing,” she said. “It's a very real threat to a lot of a lot of innocent people.”
