Abbotsford woman’s cellphone number stolen, e-mail and PayPal accounts hacked

ABBOTSFORD (NEWS 1130) – It’s been a nightmare of a week for an Abbotsford woman after somebody stole her cellphone number and used it to hack into a bunch of her accounts.

“So mad, I’m just so frustrated because I just think that it’s just a ridiculous situation,” she tells NEWS 1130.

The ordeal began Tuesday morning when the woman, who doesn’t want to be named, got a text from her cellphone provider saying they got a request to transfer her number to another provider, and to urgently contact them if she hadn’t requested it. By the time she reached them to say it wasn’t her, it was too late.

“I was on hold for about 15, 20 minutes and my phone just stopped working,” she says.

And the hackers were already busy getting into her accounts.

“They had used my phone number to get the codes to change the passwords to things and locked me out of my e-mail,” she adds. “I called PayPal and had to lock my account and [the hackers] had already requested to withdraw $480 from my bank account into my PayPal account so that they could take it out there but luckily I called in time.”

While she has since been able to get her phone number back and get into most of her accounts, her e-mail address, which is connected to just about everything in her life, is a different story.

“The person who hacked me made it so that a code would have to get sent to an app that they have, so I can’t get the code,” the woman says. “I’ve done the online chat, I’ve done the recovery forms, I’ve called them, I’ve talked to them, and they’re just basically saying ‘Oh, I don’t think that there will be anything we can do,’ which is ridiculous because I can prove who I am and that’s my e-mail.”

The rules around number porting, which is meant to easily allow customers to change their cellphone provider, were established by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 2005. The standard is 2.5 hours to transfer a number from one cellphone provider to another.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC)says thefts involving cellphone number porting have been going on for about a year, although they’ve been on the rise in recent months.

“A fraudster will impersonate you to gain access to your mobile account and may claim that their phone has been lost or stolen. Your phone number will be linked to a new SIM and device that the fraudster controls,” the CAFC says on its website.

“The fraudster then downloads a series of the most popular and most attractive applications. They will select the ‘Forgot Password’ button on all applications. If an account is associated to your phone number or email address, the fraudster will receive a verification code. They will then use this code to confirm ownership of the account.”

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA), which represents wireless service providers, says companies have been working to address porting fraud.

“Our members take their customers’ privacy and security very seriously, and as fraudsters are constantly evolving techniques to try and take advantage of wireless consumers, our members continually strengthen their security measures and verification procedures,” the association says in an e-mail. “The standards and procedures for number porting are regularly reviewed and, when necessary, revised, whether to improve the process or address an issue such as number porting fraud.”

Fraudsters can get your personal information to steal your phone number in a number of ways, including by buying it after a data breach or as easily as getting some details off social media.

To protect yourself, the CWTA recommends not publishing personal information, like your birth date, on social media and watching out for emails and text messages that ask you to change your password or update your account. You should also make sure that your security questions and answers are not easy to guess.

Editor’s Note: Rogers is the parent company of this station