Patricia Gauthier believed she was helping TD Bank and police catch a fraudster.
Two hours later, scammers had collected her bank cards from the mailbox outside her Montreal West home and withdrawn $6,000 from accounts she shares with her partner, Sue Meyer.
Reported losses from so-called bank-investigator scams reached $28.6 million in the first six months of 2026, surpassing the $28.3 million reported during all of last year, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Consumer advocates say the losses expose a system that puts much of the burden on individuals while offering victims little prospect of reimbursement or recovery.
“The system has, for the last 10 years or more, focused almost solely on education,” said Anthony Quinn, president of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons. “And then if they get defrauded, well, it’s your fault. Too bad, you should have known better.”
Meyer said the scheme began late one morning when a woman claiming to work for TD told Gauthier there was suspicious activity in their accounts. She transferred the call to a man posing as a Sûreté du Québec detective.
The man said police had arrested a repeat offender and needed Gauthier’s help securing a conviction. For nearly two hours, he kept her on the line.
“He was very personable, very slick,” Meyer said.
Gauthier was then asked for the PINs for both debit cards. When she questioned why a bank employee would need them, she was told TD’s computer system was down.
The supposed detective said a judge needed to inspect the couple’s debit and credit cards as evidence. He instructed Gauthier to seal them in an envelope and leave it in their outdoor mailbox for an officer to collect.
When she asked why she could not hand over the envelope directly, the caller said procedures introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic prevented police from accepting items in person.
By the time Meyer returned home, the envelope was gone.
“They were gone within five or 10 minutes,” she said.
Meyer called TD’s fraud department, then confronted the man, who was still on the phone with Gauthier.
“I said, ‘Stop talking. You’re a liar,’” she recalled. “As soon as I said I had been on the phone with TD fraud, he hung up.”
Bank records later showed three withdrawals within three minutes: $5,000 from Gauthier’s account and $1,000 from Meyer’s.
They reported the fraud to police and sought reimbursement from TD. Meyer said the bank refused to return the money.
“It makes you feel violated,” Meyer said. “Someone comes into your life and does this to us.”
Sue Mayer, left, and partner Patricia Gauthier were recent victims of a fraud phone scam. “It makes you feel violated,” Meyer says. “Someone comes into your life and does this to us.” Tim Snow / Montreal Gazette
Asked why it denied the claims, TD pointed to its Access Card Agreement. The bank said customers must protect their cards, PINs and other security credentials and may be held liable if they provide them to another person.
The Canadian debit-card code, which TD says it follows, makes a specific exception for deception: a PIN obtained through trickery, coercion, force or intimidation is not considered voluntarily disclosed.
TD did not explain how it applied that provision in denying their claims.
Jeff Horncastle, an outreach officer with the Anti-Fraud Centre, said “the goal is to keep the victim frightened, engaged and reacting before they have time to stop and verify the situation,” Horncastle said.
Quinn said people should hang up, contact the institution through a verified number and consult someone they trust before providing financial information.
“We can teach Canadians to pause and verify, but the institutions carrying the call and moving the money must also be required to prevent foreseeable harm,” he said.
In the U.K. and the United States, those duties are backed by law.
Under the U.K.’s Payment Services Regulations 2017, banks generally must refund unauthorized payments by the next business day. In the United States, Regulation E treats transfers made with a card or account information obtained through fraud as unauthorized and requires banks to investigate.
Canada, by contrast, still relies on a voluntary debit-card code first adopted in 1992 and last revised in 2004. Although it says victims are not liable when cards or PINs are obtained through fraud or trickery, it does not provide the same statutory right to reimbursement.
“Canada has become very good at receiving fraud reports but not nearly good enough at converting those reports into coordinated investigations, frozen assets, prosecutions and restitution,” Quinn said.
Meyer said she was told fraud losses below approximately $30,000 were unlikely to be investigated. The SPVM did not answer whether such a threshold exists before publication, saying media inquiries were handled according to priority.
“Reporting fraud should be the beginning of an investigation — not the end of the government’s involvement,” Quinn said.