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How a B.C. man lost — then recovered — $735k to an investment scam
In November 2022, Allan Landa was searching for a place for his investment money, which he planned to use for a future property development project.
Searching online, he saw ads for high-interest returns on investments. Within a couple days, someone claiming to be from HSBC Jade wealth management called him.
Landa says he checked the name the caller gave him with HSBC’s main bank branch in downtown Vancouver and found the person was listed as an employee.
Court documents later filed by Landa say the calls came from a man identified as the “imposter” fraudulently posing as an adviser at the Jade division of HSBC bank.
In December 2022, Landa ended up making two wire transfers to the person who contacted him — one for just over $160,136 and the other for $575,000, totalling just over $735,136.
The transfers went ahead, despite staff at the banks where his own accounts are — TD and RBC — grilling him with tough questions before reluctantly sending them.
The money went into an RBC bank account in the name of a company called B21 Trade (Canada) Ltd. — the same company a man in Winnipeg transferred money to in 2022.
A couple of days after Landa’s money was wired to B21 Trade, he was contacted by TD Bank, which said there were red flags on the company’s RBC account and that it had been frozen. The freeze meant the money Landa sent couldn’t be removed by the alleged fraudster.
Landa thinks that was because of the discovery of fraud in the Winnipeg case.
Landa filed a lawsuit in B.C.’s Supreme Court against B21 Trade (Canada) Ltd., the “John Doe” imposter posing as the HSBC Jade adviser, and a “Jane Doe” who held the RBC bank account where Landa’s funds were transferred.
He was able to get a court order to get his money back.
But Landa says banks need to tighten the rules on transactions like his with the imposter.
“They should be probably a lot more strict than they are, and they are very strict,” he said, adding he suspects fraud is “unbelievably rampant.”
“Every time I go to the bank, somebody is talking about the fact they had a fraud.”
His experience left him thinking regulations should be changed to impose a seven-day hold on wire transfers before the money is moved.
But ultimately, “I blame myself, because it was my fault. Period,” he said. Read More
It’s not you, it’s them: How dating apps frustrate you into paying
Have you ever paid for dating apps? Some apps want to convince you there’s a higher chance of finding love if you do, according to experts we spoke with.
People are calling out dating apps that are locking love behind a paywall.
A number of researchers and users with whom CBC News spoke say these companies are doing ethically questionable things — like restricting the pool of users — to try to convince users to pay for their services.
Gizmodo technology journalist Thomas Germain, who spent a year researching Hinge and its algorithm, said dating apps don’t want to get users addicted to swiping all day.
“What they want is for you to pay.”
To do so, he says the apps engage in ethically questionable — though not illegal — tactics to make users frustrated with the options in the free version of the app.
Hinge, for example, will rank your attractiveness by using your profile photos when you join the platform, Germain said. Based on the users who swipe right or left on your profile, the algorithm adjusts the ranking.
“If someone who’s very attractive likes you, that means that your rating goes up a little bit,” he said. “If someone who’s judged to be unattractive rejects you, then your rating is going to go down.”
The app will then limit the amount of people it shows you who it determines are “in your same league” to convince you that you need to pay for a subscription to access better matches.
Most dating apps give free users a set amount of swipes per day. Germain says he’s heard from many people that once they’ve run out of their allotment of swipes for the day, the next profile the app shows them is the most attractive person they’ve seen all day.
But to swipe right on that profile, you have to pay.
“That could be a coincidence,” said Germain. “Or it could be because these apps are using human beings as pawns to manipulate people to increase their bottom line.”
CBC News reached out to Bumble, Tinder and Hinge to ask specifically about their algorithms. None of them agreed to do an interview. Read More
Ontario is being sued for halting its basic income pilot
Joshua Hewitt was in and out of homelessness for about a decade. The Thunder Bay resident said receiving basic income payments from the Ontario government helped him get into a better apartment and invest more time into his volunteer organization, StandUp4Cleanup, which he launched while in recovery from alcoholism.
“A lot of the barriers just started to fade away because I was able to get out in the community and access resources, and I could go to restaurants that I normally wouldn’t go to,” said Hewitt.
After the pilot program ended, his three-year plan was tossed out the window. Now a single dad on Ontario Works, Hewitt says having a basic income would have made a huge difference for his family.
“I felt like all the dignity I worked for and all the dignity they gave me with the program was just stripped away,” he said. “It really is just a broken system.”
Hewitt is just one of the thousands of people impacted after the province scrapped the basic income pilot project nearly six years ago. The early cancellation of the program in 2018 is behind a class-action lawsuit that was certified by a Superior Court judge on March 4.
On Tuesday, the Toronto law firm Cavalluzzo LLP said the class action was brought forward by 4,000 people. It alleges Ontario breached the terms and conditions of the contract it entered into with participants and seeks damages of up to $200 million.
The pilot project was launched by Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government in 2017 — in Lindsay, Hamilton and Thunder Bay — with the goal of learning how a basic income would affect people’s well-being over a three-year period.
It was axed in the summer the following year, shortly after Doug Ford’s Conservatives came into power.
Since the pilot project ended, the cost of living has continued to climb across Ontario and more people are relying on food banks.
Ontario has indicated it won’t appeal the court’s decision to certify the lawsuit. That means the case has entered the second stage — the common issues trial.
In an email to CBC News, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services said they could not comment on the case as it is before the courts. Read More
What else is going on?
The U.S. government is suing Apple
It’s accusing the tech giant of “unlawful exclusionary behaviour” by engineering an illegal monopoly.
Canada is facing a shortage of measles vaccines amid a rise in cases and demand
Health Canada says there’s enough supply for public programs, but not for the private market right now.
AI could have catastrophic consequences — is Canada ready?
An AI researcher is warning that governments are running out of time to put in place comprehensive safeguards.
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