Vancouver's Carolyn Robinson is suing the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (TSX:CM) (CIBC) for $150,000 plus punitive damages, interest and costs because she alleges its Simplii Financial division did not act quickly to stop a fraud that cost her $150,000.
CIBC told BIV in an email that it is "declining comment as the matter is before the courts." It has not yet filed a response to Robinson's May 1 notice of civil claim.
Robinson did not say in her lawsuit exactly how she was first contacted by the alleged scammers but she said that in late October 2024, she began "corresponding" with them. These individuals allegedly posed as representatives of President's Choice Financial Bank (PC Financial), which was an institution where Robinson said she had previously held accounts.
She alleged that scammers offered her a one-year cashable (or redeemable) guaranteed investment certificate (GIC), which carried a 6.1 per cent interest rate if she invested $150,000.
Robsinson claims she decided to act on this offer so she consolidated approximately $150,000 into one of her Simplii Financial accounts so she could then transfer the money to buy the GIC.
On Nov. 1 at around 5 p.m., she allegedly called Simplii Financial to execute the $150,000 wire transfer to a PC Financial account at the Toronto Dominion Bank (TSX:TD) (TD). The Simplii Financial employee did not question why Robinson was making the transfer, she alleged. The employee also allegedly told her that she would only get a receipt of the transfer once the payment had been sent.
Three days later, the alleged scammers, posing as PC Financial, called Robinson to say they had not yet received her payment, she alleged.
She claimed that she attempted to call PC Financial at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 5 but was directed to a suspicious voicemail. She then allegedly sent an email to the person she had been corresponding with at PC Financial, but her email bounced back. This was, she claims, the first time she suspected that she may have fallen victim to a fraud.
She allegedly then called Simplii Financial and spoke to an employee named Jason. She told him she suspected she had fallen victim to a scam and that funds had only recently been withdrawn from her Simplii Financial account, she claimed.
She alleged in her lawsuit that she told Jason the TD bank account number and that he did not inform her that a so-called "wire recall" was possible. Nor, to her knowledge, did he issue a recall of the transfer, she alleged.
The next morning, at 6:16 a.m., the alleged scammers emailed Robinson to again tell her that they had not received her funds, she claimed.
At 7:47 a.m., she said called a TD bank in Ontario to flag the receiving bank account.
Soon after that, a TD representative told Robinson to call the TD's fraud department to alert the bank that the transfer should be stopped, and that person also requested the transfer number, she alleged.
At 7:59 a.m., Robinson called Simplii Financial and requested the transfer number but the employee who she spoke with refused to provide that number on the phone, she alleged. That employee, she claimed, said he could email a receipt of the transfer. The document that Simplii sent did not have a readily identifiable wire transfer number, she alleged. Nonetheless, she provided that document to TD, she claimed.
Immediately afterward, she claimed, she attempted to call the Simplii Financial wire fraud department. The employee who she spoke with, she alleged, refused to transfer Robinson to the wire fraud department. Instead, the employee told Robsinson that the employee would speak with that department on her behalf, she alleged.
She claimed that she was put on hold and then the employee returned to say that Simplii Financial could issue a recall for the funds.
This was the first time that she had heard about the possibility of a recall being issued, she claimed.
During the call, she claimed she repeatedly asked the employee to call the TD fraud department but the employee told Robinson that Simplii Financial's procedure was not to call other banks.
Robsinson then spoke with "an apparent supervisor" who told her that an investigation needed to be opened, according to the court documents. That supervisor then asked Robinson for all the information that she had provided to the employee named Jason the previous afternoon, she claimed.
At 8:32 a.m., a TD representative phoned Robinson to tell her that the TD's fraud department knew of the concern with the recipient account, and that the concern was "being processed."
She alleged that she then called Simplii Financial again and was only allowed to speak with someone in the fraud department, not the wire fraud department, she claimed.
"At 8:55 a.m., over 14 hours after being notified of the fraud, Simplii Financial issued a 'recall' for the transfer (though Ms. Robinson only learned the timing of this days later,)" she alleged in her lawsuit.
At 9:30 a.m., the scammers emailed Robinson to tell her that they had received the transfer.
The next day, on Nov. 7, she emailed the scammers and requested that her funds be returned, to no avail, she claimed.
The result is that she is out $150,000, she alleged in her lawsuit.
"Simplii Financial delayed and did not issue a 'recall' of the transfer until Nov. 6, 2024," she claimed in her lawsuit. "Additionally, at least preliminarily, Simplii Financial refused to call TD Bank to request that TD Bank freeze or otherwise flag the receiving bank account; or inform, alert or warn TD Bank of the transfer."
She said the rationale for her claims is that Simplii Financial knew or ought to have known that scammers frequently use wire transfers, that wire transfers can be recalled and that when a wire transfer is identified as fraudulent, "time is of the essence."
She added that communicating with the bank that is receiving a fraudulent wire transfer is an "essential step" in preventing the wire transfer from being completed.
None of Robinson's claims have been tested in court.
