The Winnipeg Police Service is alerting the public of many fraudulent phone calls coming in to residents recently.
The scammers calling are posing as people's financial institutions and then saying the person's bank accounts have been compromised. Then the suspects say they want to help the victim secure their money.
Once the victim agrees, the suspect instructs the person to move money from their account to a 'secure' one which ends up being an account they take the money from.
According to the WPS, the number being dialed from even looks legitimate.
To keep people from being scammed out of money, the police are reminding people that their financial institution would never call them and ask them to provide secure information, or to move money while on the phone.
Anyone who receives a call claiming to be from their financial Institution should take additional proactive steps to verify its authenticity. One way to do this is hang up and then call the bank directly from the provided number on the debit card.
Anyone who has been scammed this way recently can file an online report with the Winnipeg Police Service using the Citizen Online Crime Reporting System at www.winnipeg.ca/police.