Nottawasaga OPP are looking for three suspects wanted in a fraud investigation.
Officers say both incidents happened on January 5th between 2:00pm and 3:00pm.
The first was at the CIBC in Alliston where the victim lost $1600 while the second was at the CIBC in Tottenham where that victim lost $3800.
A release from the OPP explains exactly how the frauds happened:
“The victims appear to be completing their transactions at an ATM, going to leave the premises and are then called back by the suspect a which time, they tell he victim that their transaction hasn’t completed and therefore they can’t use the ATM.”
From there, police say “the suspect will attempt to demonstrate the problem to the victim by putting an unidentified card in the machine that then shows an error.”
They added “the suspects then physically take the card out of the victim’s hand, puts it partially into the ATM, hits cancel and then hands them back what they think is their card but in reality is someone else’s, or possibly a fake card.”
Officers say after that the genuine card is “then used to withdraw funds from the victim’s bank account and, in the case of the occurrence in Tottenham, the card was also used to to purchase several prepaid credit cards at local retailers.”
From surveillance video it also appears that the male subject removes one of the shields intended to help hide a PIN number, and then observes the PIN entry over the victim’s shoulder
Police are asking anybody with information to contact them or Crime Stoppers.