A Williams Lake woman is warning others hoping to prevent them from being scammed by online customer surveys after she lost hundreds of dollars.
Kim Herdman said she was on the Telus website when a pop-up came on the screen asking her to complete a customer survey for a chance to win an iPad.
“When I selected the iPad it said they were all out, but I could win some face cream,” Herdman told the Tribune this week.
Herdman was then asked to enter credit card information to cover the $5.95 cost of shipping her prize.
Since then her credit card has been billed in the amounts of $189, $179 and two more charges for $129.
She has received packages in the mail containing the cream, but has been mailing them back.
“We have cancelled our credit card, but the bank is not going to do anything about our situation,” Herman said. “When I talked to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre they said they are getting a considerable volume of these kinds calls and some people have lost thousands of dollars.”
Products she has received through the scam are from Retinolla and Revoluxe, with a return address to care of Precision Total Fulfillment, 41 Parr Blvd. Bolton, Ontario L7E 4E3.
From her experience, Herdman urges anyone else who is a victim of a similar scam to do three things.
They have to phone their credit card company and cancel the card, contact the anti-fraud centre at 1-888-495-8501 and if they receive any parcels in the mail to send them back right away.
“There are all these different scams on the web,” Herdman said, noting if people want to do online purchases they should consider using a credit card that has a small credit limit, just in case.
“I don’t normally fall for scams,” she added. “But I did this time and want to prevent it from happening to somebody else.”
