A Winnipeg man allegedly lost hundreds of dollars after calling what he thought was Facebook’s customer service line. He now wants to warn others who could fall victim to a similar scam. He says the scammer also hacked his Facebook account — a claim Gaudreau reported to Facebook directly. Read the full report on the fracas here.
Man Lost Hundreds of Dollars in Scam
“I just felt like I needed to say more because other people are going to fall for this. It was such a good scam,” Dave Gaudreau told CBC.
But here’s the critical piece Gaudreau didn’t realize: Facebook doesn’t have a support phone number. Gaudreau, a former Manitoba NDP legislator, ran into trouble in April when he got a new cellphone and tried to transfer his apps — including Facebook — to the new device.
When he had trouble transferring his Facebook account, his wife did an internet search. She found what appeared to be a telephone number for Facebook support. Of course, being the tech-savvy athlete he is, Gaudreau went straight to Facebook Messenger to verify the number. Messenger’s “Meta AI” search tool confirmed that 1-844-457-0520 was indeed a legitimate Facebook support number.
“According to Meta, right on the Facebook app, it’s telling me that this is right. So I had no reason to think it wasn’t,” Gaudreau said.
After Gaudreau called the number, he confirmed that the woman on the other end already had his Facebook username and the e-mail associated with his account, in addition to his phone number. She got into his Facebook, and this is where things took a disturbing turn, said Gaudreau.
The woman reportedly told him that she would be able to remove the hackers, but she would need to access his phone and walk him through downloading a certain app. While they were on the call, Gaudreau realized his PayPal had been accessed—someone had bought a $500 Apple gift card set for monthly renewal with the account.
Furthermore, he claimed that the hacker on the other end, pretending to be customer support, also tried buying Bitcoin, but his bank didn’t approve the purchase. It seems that his wife was the first one to spot the scam, and she screamed at him to hang up the call.
Gaudreau then canceled and blocked all his credit cards and locked his bank accounts. He then filed fraud complaints with PayPal and Visa.
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