A Castlegar woman has lost $122,000 in an investment scam.
While browsing the internet last summer, the victim came across an ad with an announcement from Justin Trudeau claiming Elon Musk was allowing people to buy his Bitcoin, with opportunity for great returns on investments.
Intrigued, the 68-year-old retiree clicked the link.
It took her to a website that looked to be a legitimate investment firm called Wynn Exchange.
With limited savings, a mortgage, and RSPs earning small dividends, she thought this might be a good way to gain enough money to help with monthly expenses and do a few nice things for her family.
Instead, the five-month long relationship with the scammers ended up emptying all her savings and leaving her $50,000 in debt.
Today, Wynn Exchange can be found on investment warning lists from both the Alberta and Ontario Securities Commissions.
"I thought I was smart enough not to get scammed," the victim told Castlegar News in a March interview.
But it turned out the scammers were even smarter.
A team of men worked together, playing different roles. One managed the investments while another played the role of banker.
One even produced credentials of a real person working as a broker in the United States. However convincing, the person using them was an imposter.
Early on in the scam, after something the scammers asked her to set up online wasn't working properly, they asked for access to her computer to resolve the issue. They maintained access for months.
The deception was thorough.
"They were very kind," explained the victim. "They wanted to be like your best friend."
The scammers called her almost every day to check in, give reports on her investments, and ask about how her life was going.
They asked to see her vacation photos and seemed to really care about her. She says she really felt like they had developed a true friendship.
The fake firm produced regular investment reports showing how her money was steadily growing.
They continued to pitch her opportunities for quick return investments including making a bunch of money related to the November 2024 Mike Tyson fight.
They told her that if she invested her RSP money, they could triple it in a week.
Eventually, after giving them about $50,000, she didn't really have much left to invest.
But supposedly, her investments were doing so well the advisors told her she could withdraw $204,000 and just keep earning money off of what was left in the account.
At this point, another player joined the scam. The victim was contacted by someone saying they were from the Blockchain CRA Anti-fraud Department, a branch of the Canada Revenue Agency.
No such agency exists, but the victim believed the caller.
She was told that because her investment payout was coming from a foreign account, she would have to pay an upfront tax of 35 per cent before they would release the money. They asked for $71,000.
The scammers continued to play their roles, with one pretending to be frustrated at the other for authorizing a payment that was large enough to flag CRA.
In desperation to gain access to her $204,000, the victim took out a a high-interest line of credit for $50,000 and emptied the rest of her bank account to make the payment.
Everything fell apart shortly before Christmas.
Expecting to see her money soon, she was shocked when another call came in from the "CRA" saying they needed an additional $100,000.
She confronted the broker, a man she thought was her friend.
He offered to contribute his $70,000 commission from her investments if she could come up with the rest.
He told her, "I'll never abandon you. I swear to God, I did everything I can."
Then, he said she should just send all the funds she could come up with directly to him.
She says the realization that she had been betrayed and lost all of her money was devastating.
"I am now broke, I now know how people just want to end it or just leave," said the victim. "For a week, I could barely eat, barely sleep. I was sick."
Faced with the reality of her situation, she finally confided in her son and contacted the police and other fraud agencies.
"Life has been really hard the last few months. It weighs on you, I don't feel like I am the happy person I should be."
But after struggling in the dark for several months, the victim is now looking for a way to fight back and realizing she has more to live for than her bank accounts.
"The only lesson I am getting out of it is that money is not everything," she said as she talked about the support and love of her family.
She is also humbly telling her story to try to prevent someone else from becoming a victim.
"The next time it will be a different name, but the same scam," she adds. "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is."
