A CANADIAN woman has transferred all of her family’s money into foreign accounts after a scammer tricked her into thinking she was wanted by Hong Kong police.
Vivien Zheng had just invested her father’s life savings — $340,000 — into a new Vancouver condo that the two planned to live in after her mother had died when she got a phone call.
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The caller told the 43-year-old that she was an employee at the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver and was looking for Zheng as a suspect in an international money-laundering scam in the May 2018 call.
The woman even had Zheng’s driver’s license number, she told the Canadian Broadcast Channel in 2021 after reconciling what had happened to her.
“I was very surprised she had my driver’s license number because it was only one month old. I was scared to death,” she said.
The fake consulate worker soon transferred Zheng to a fake Hong Kong police investigator who told her that he suspected her of selling her bank information to criminals.
To avoid going to prison in Hong Kong indefinitely, she would need to cooperate completely, the scammer said.
“I totally believed these are international Chinese police calling me,” said Zheng, adding that the caller ID showed 110, an emergency number in China similar to 911.
“I was in the process of closing that [condo] sale. So I was in panic mode. I did everything they asked me to do.”
The thieves eventually told Zheng to make an initial $60,000 wire transfer to an offshore account that they said was held by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Hong Kong, a real agency whose name was being used by the scammers.
She sent three more transfers from three other banks over the next two weeks, closely following the directions of the fraudsters to avoid detection in “total fear” of what might happen if she disobeyed.
Zheng soon completely emptied her bank account of the $340,000 meant to pay for her and her father’s new home.
“In my whole life,” she said. “I’ve never experienced such a horrible crime.”
HARD TO ADMIT
She felt ashamed that the crime happened to her family and was been afraid to tell her story until years afterward.
“I did feel very shameful,” said Zheng. “I didn’t want to… share this story with anybody else because I knew they were going to think I am stupid.”
The loss pushed her into depression and led her to take out a secret mortgage to keep her family’s new home.
“I had suicidal plans,” she admitted.
But experts say that scammers are pros at finding vulnerabilities and victims should not be blamed.
She’s not stupid.
Vanessa Iafolla
“She’s not stupid,” financial fraud expert Vanessa Iafolla told CBC.
“These people have refined their scams and… understand how to exploit human weakness. Being afraid for your own safety and being afraid for the safety of a loved one is a powerful motivator,” she said.
NO RESPONSIBILITY
Zheng said that she filed complaints with all four of the banks that she used to make the wire transfers, including TD Bank, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, and Bank of China.
Each bank denied responsibility for the fraudulent transactions, leading Zheng to file civil lawsuits against them.
TD Bank refused to refund her largest wire transfer — $178,000 — because Zheng claimed the transfer was going to a “business associate” and signed a “wire agreement” absolving the bank of any responsibility for the money, according to court documents.
Zheng had told Royal Bank of Canada representatives that the $60,000 was going to her uncle, as coached by the scammers, and replied yes when asked by bank officials if she trusted the source of the wire instructions.
RBC attorneys also said Zheng signed a banking agreement limiting their liability for losses.
Bank of Montreal representatives said that Zheng failed to disclose the “suspicious circumstances” surrounding the wire request at the time of initiation and, as a result, they are not responsible for her $32,000 loss.
Bank of China attorneys said, “There is no requirement that Bank representatives confirm the purpose of a wire transfer or that customers advise the Bank of the purpose of a wire transfer” and denied her $69,000 refund request.
The financial expert Iafolla said she considered the banks’ questioning to be unhelpful and believes they should have done more to protect Zheng.
“None of the questions that I saw in the documents actually demonstrated… the kind of probing that I would want to see,” she said.
“What was asked of her was very superficial and mostly pertained to the correct processing of the transaction.”
“The issue is, are those questions enough, knowing what [banks] know about fraud?” I don’t see a recognition of that in those documents,” she added.
HOW TO STAY SAFE
Now Zheng wants to help other people avoid the terrible trap she fell into.
“My purpose is to stand for not only myself but all the victims,” said Zheng. “We deserve proper protection from the banks. They had a responsibility to warn people of such a serious crime.”
To protect yourself from bank scams, remember that police and government officials should never ask you to transfer money to foreign accounts or buy gift cards or cryptocurrency.
If a caller begins threatening you or claims that you must provide personal information or money urgently, hang up.
Check the caller ID, but remember that savvy criminals can spoof telephone numbers to look legitimate when they’re not.
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