Don't fall for the bank investigator scam
Erin Kernohan-Berning
7/23/20254 min read
According to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, as of June 30, 2025 over 17,000 Canadians have been victims of fraud collectively losing $342 million. One scam that has recently seen a resurgence is the “bank investigator scam.”
With the bank investigator scam, the bad guys pose as your bank’s fraud investigators. They call you over the phone and tell you that there has been a fraudulent transaction on your account. They take you through steps to “protect your account” (they aren’t protecting your account) that involve logging into your banking app, completing a transaction, and sharing a code texted to your phone. The scammers are then able to steal money from those accounts.
The bank investigator scam isn’t new, but recent iterations of the scam have made it easier to trick victims. First, it seems the scammers have at least some information about the victim prior to contacting them by phone. This can include full names, partial debit or credit card numbers, and proper bank names. Second, the scammers have altered their caller ID to look like the phone call is coming from the victim’s bank, a practice called spoofing. With a little bit of information and some authoritative bluster, scammers have been able to fleece tens of thousands of dollars from their victims in recent months.
One of the reasons this scam works is it preys upon a feeling of urgency. How would you feel if someone told you your bank account had been compromised by bad guys and was being drained of the money you need to pay for your groceries? Panicked, right? Scammers use this panic to stop us from thinking about what we are doing, and to comply with what they tell us to do. They also prey upon a respect for authority. If the person is a fraud investigator, or police, or other authority figure, we should do what they say, right? Scammers us these common reactions to socially engineer the exact right circumstances to trick you out of your money and other private information.
So how do you protect yourself from these scams?
If you answer a call that appears to be from your bank and claims to be investigating fraudulent account activity on your account, don’t panic. Scammers will try to make you hand over sensitive information to them as quickly as possible, however, you have time. Take the time to breathe, calm yourself, think clearly, and… hang up the phone. Yup. Hang up on them. Pull your physical debit card out of your wallet and call the number on the back of that. You can trust that the number on the back of your debit card is legitimate, but you can’t fully trust that caller ID.
As much as caller ID is a modern marvel that lets us screen our calls, it is also easily manipulated. Sometimes this is for perfectly acceptable reasons – some big organizations with multiple locations will set their caller ID to be their main callback number to provide more immediate service, for example. Sometimes though, scammers change their caller ID to fool you into thinking they are calling from your bank. Always be a bit wary of caller ID.
It's also important to protect your sensitive information generally – this includes setting up multifactor authentication (MFA) and having complex passwords on any account that supports it and do not reuse passwords from one account to the next. If you do get a scam call where they seem to have more information about you than would be found in the phone book, change the passwords on your important accounts. It might mean that some online service you used somewhere may have had a breach even if you weren’t informed about it. If you have MFA set up, this is less of a problem, but it’s cheap insurance to change those passwords anyway. Remember, never share MFA codes with anyone.
Another aspect of the bank investigator scam that’s been seen in Ottawa, Montreal, and Peterborough, is that in some cases scammers will visit your house and ask you to hand over your debit card. Do not do this, don’t let the person into your home, and make sure to report something like this to your local police.
Finally, make sure you fully understand your bank’s cardholder agreements. Most agreements will include your responsibilities when it comes to keeping your account details secure, reporting fraud, and what constitutes an unauthorized transaction – all of which can affect whether you can recover those funds.
Being a victim of fraud comes with feelings of embarrassment and shame, but scammers rely on this too. If you think you have been a victim of fraud, make sure to tell someone you trust and the correct authorities.
Learn more
RBC tells customer she's responsible for $14K stolen from account in bank investigator scam 2025. Sophia Harris (CBC News) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Bank investigator Scam 2025. (Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Anti-fraud centre warns of rising 'bank investigator' scam targeting Canadians 2025. (Cambridge Today) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Seeking suspects in $250,000 ‘Bank Investigator’ scam 2025. (Ottawa Police Services) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Warning: New twist in bank investigator scam impersonating Ottawa Police 2025. (Ottawa Police Service) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Police warn of attempted bank investigator scam in Peterborough 2025. (Ptbo Today) Last accessed 2025/07/16
'I'm terrified': 2 Ontario women lost more than $80,000 to bank investigator scam 2024. Pat Foran (CTV News) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Number of Montreal RBC customers defrauded in phone scams could be higher 2025. (CTV) Last accessed 2025/07/16
How to protect yourself from the Bank Investigator scam 2025. (TD Stories) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Caller ID Spoofing 2023. (CRTC) Last accessed 2025/07/16
Correction log
Just a note here to give a pretty major exception to the "don't share your MFA code with anyone" rule. When you walk into your bank, or you call the number on the back of your debit card, you may indeed be asked for an MFA code. The notification in this case should state that you are to share that code with the bank's agent, and no one else. Remember: be absolutely sure that when you do this it has been in a situation that you initiated (i.e.: you are in the bank or you made the call).
Not a correction, but just wanted to highlight some previous articles I wrote about scams:
How not to get scammed and other skills for modern life