Magog gift card fraud victims lose $100,000

An elderly couple in Magog were reportedly swindled out of $100,000 over the span of three weeks in a Facebook messenger scam.
According to The Régie de police de Memphrémagog (RPM) Lieutenant Carl Pepin, the hacker impersonated the cousin of one of the fraud victims. The victim was also relatively new to Facebook, working to the hacker’s advantage, explained Pepin.
“The person on the other end managed to convince the couple to invest into a strategy that would at the end give them $150,000 and they would get a new car, free-of-tax and all that, if they listened to all the instructions,” he said.
Pepin added that the hacker and the elderly couple spoke over the phone and even exchanged emails. The couple were asked to go to pharmacies and other businesses to purchase gift cards with a $500 value. The lieutenant said they went as far as Waterloo to obtain cards.
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