A 100 Mile House woman is speaking out after becoming the victim of fraud.
Shawn Weisner lost $1,490 while attempting to sell an unwanted tent on Facebook Marketplace earlier this month. A scammer gained access to her bank account via a QR Code and it was only thanks to a quick phone call she was able to prevent the theft of more of her savings.
"I don't consider myself very tech-savvy, but I don't consider myself stupid either," Weisner noted. "If you're going to do things on Facebook Marketplace, you should have a separate account for e-transfers, or just demand to meet people...in a busier place, not your own home, and only accept cash."
The theft occurred after Weisner purchased a tent from Amazon but "it turned out to be not what I want - so it was more of a hassle to send it back." Rather than let the tent go to waste she put up a post on Facebook Marketplace offering to sell it for $50 on Saturday, July 13.
Weisner said that an account that went by the name of Authur Silva, expressed an interest in her tent within five minutes of her posting and asked for her to set up an e-transfer. After agreeing, Weisner received a QR code from him.
After three hours of struggling to use the QR code, Weisner said that things turned bad and Silva became aggressive with her.
"So then he [Silva] got kinda nasty with me and demanded I send more pictures (of the tent) and I said I don't have any more pictures," Weisner explained.
Silva then apologized to Weisner, and said that "everything is good." When Weisner checked her bank account on Sunday she noticed $1,490 was missing and an additional $3,500 e-transfer was pending in her name. Weisner managed to stop the e-transfer after a phone call with the Williams Lake and District Credit Union, but it was too late to stop the $1,490 one.
Realizing she was the victim of fraud, Weisner went to the 100 Mile House RCMP to report the incident but was upset when they told her they could do nothing beyond file a report, even after she showed them evidence of the crime. RCMP advised her to reach out to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre for additional help.
"It's not a big enough fish for them to go after," Weisner speculated.
The RCMP did note in briefs sent out to the media last week that the incident occurred and that they believe Silva was using a false account. Const. Chelsea Hines said that 100 Mile RCMP have seen a few scams on Facebook Marketplace over the years.
"Whether it be, you know, e-transferring money before receiving an item, or you know, and then never receiving the item, or you know having a location to meet up and the person never arriving," Weisner said.
Hines says that no other personal information should be given over Facebook or any other sites - and that a better option is to pay cash in person. In addition, if there has been no financial loss from the scam, people are urged to go to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, which collects information on fraud and identity theft and provides information on past and current scams affecting Canadians. If there is financial loss, people are urged to file a police report.
Weisner stated that she will be only accepting cash for any Facebook Marketplace transactions from now on, noting this experience has caused her a lot of grief. She hopes that by sharing her story she'll help others avoid the same trick she fell for.
"Just going forward, I've learned a hard lesson," Weisner said. "And I'm just grateful that it wasn't more."
