I wasn’t attacked or held up at gunpoint, I never saw my robber, or even had to stair down a would be assailant but I was robbed and violated just the same.
Heather and I had gone to Silver City Polo Park on Saturday night to relax and watch the 9:55 showing of Cars. We had shown up a little bit late and decided to use the fast pay lane instead of standing in line with everyone else and possibly missing the previews.
I had thought that the card swipe looked a little more “clunky” than normal and asked Heather if it “looked right”. I gave it a tug and it didn’t feel like anything was loose and I figured that I was being silly.
Well I didn’t feel to silly this morning at 8:30 when the bank called to ask where the last place I used my debit card was. They said that there were indicators of fraud and started asking me personal information. Not being a fool, so I thought, I told them I would call them back. It’s crazy to give out personal information to someone who calls claiming to be the bank. I called back and discovered that $2,000.00 was withdrawn from my accounts on Sunday night and Monday morning. I was instructed to bring photo ID and go to the nearest branch for a new client card and pin number.
I wasn’t the only one! I was told that I was the third person to go into the Royal Bank’s Main Branch at Portage and Main in Winnipeg that had their debit card “Skimmed” today. It was only 10:30 in the morning…. and then yet another person showed up in line behind me with the same story.
Fortunately the bank staff, with the help of one of my old trainers from my Royal Direct Days, quickly got my finances available to me. I’m grateful that the Royal Bank is covering this loss, though I’m sure they’ll either look to insurance or the Silver City Polo Park Famous Players Theater to either pay up the loss or pay a share of it.
That relief left me free to ponder just how many people must have been scammed. I figured that with about 20 Royal Bank branches in the city and assuming that one person went to each branch and 4 having been to the main branch that RBC would have had about 23 clients affected. If there was a haul of on average of $1,500 per client (I’m assuming that many people have $1,000 release of unverified funds and 1/2 of that being available on Sunday) then the total damage to the Royal Bank could be around $34,500.
Now that’s just RBC clients. Factor in the other big five banks and credit unions and the haul could easily have been in the 6 figures.
I think I was pretty lucky. If we contrast this with having had my home broken into and cash or goods stolen I’d be out a $500 deductible on my home owner’s insurance. This cost me an hour in the morning to get straightened out. Even worse I could have faced an armed robber and been injured or had to injure them.
This, while unpleasant, didn’t get ugly.