A photo of the truck which attempted to be fraudulently financed. (Tony Pires)

By Spencer Sterritt

scam alert

‘You feel violated:’ man nearly loses 70K in elaborate identity theft scam

May 31, 2019 | 10:27 AM

NANAIMO — A thorough but not entirely well-thought out identity theft scam nearly cost a man $70,000 and a serious hit to his credit.

Tony Pires said he received a call late on Saturday, May 18 from someone claiming to be the Canadian Revenue Agency. Knowing it was a scam, Pires was still shocked at the amount of information the person on the other end of the line had about him.

The person had his social insurance number and other private information. Pires said they then asked for his driver’s licence number, which he didn’t give.

Instead, he immediately inquired with credit companies if any credit checks were made.

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Sure enough, he discovered someone had called into Steve Marshall Ford in Nanaimo and tried to finance a roughly $70,000 truck.

The transaction didn’t go through since no paperwork was signed by the person who’d stolen Pires identity.

“You feel violated,” Pires told NanaimoNewsNOW after making a post about the ordeal on social media and receiving an overwhelming response. “There’s nothing you can really do about it, it’s out of your control.”

Two weeks later, Pires said he still has no idea how the people responsible so thoroughly stole his identity. He doesn’t use house cleaners and takes care to keep his information private when getting rid of paperwork.

Marc Ebdrup, the general manager of Steve Marshall Ford, confirmed someone called the dealership on the Saturday attempting to finance a truck for his girlfriend.

After providing all the proper info and a deposit, the girlfriend showed up to pick up the truck which was allegedly going to be a gift for her birthday.

“When people go to this extent, it’s really hard to catch this stuff,” Ebdrup said. “He had all of (Pires) information.”

Photo identification would have to be shown if the person had shown up on Tuesday after the long weekend to sign the paperwork for the truck.

Ebdrup said the dealership now has an extra person in a leadership role on the floor to help staff who suspect something might be amiss and to catch any potential frauds.

The truck was given to the woman with dealership plates for an extended demonstration drive, since a deposit was provided.

Nanaimo RCMP confirmed the truck was found several days later.

The serious case of identity theft is under investigation and police said charges are pending.

spencer@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit