Sunday, April 19 began quite normally for Keith Pearce of St. Adolphe. But it all changed when Pearce discovered he’d been scammed out of $6,000 in an online buy-and-sell transaction.

For Pearce, it was a spring-cleaning kind of weekend as he sorted through items in his garage. He’d posted an ad for some stereo equipment on Kijiji, a platform he’d used many times before.

In no time, he received a reply from a potential buyer, wondering if Pearce would hold the item if a $100 e-transfer deposit was sent.

He agreed. What could go wrong?

“I’ve bought and sold things on Kijiji and Marketplace and dealt with e-transfers for a long time,” Pearce says. “I’ve done dozens and dozens of transactions that way. This didn’t seem abnormal whatsoever.”

Soon a notification came to his email that the e-transfer had been sent. As always, he opened the email and clicked on the TD Bank option where he banks. Having prearranged for auto-deposits, the transfer should have ended up directly in his preferred account.

“Something in the back of my mind said, ‘Something is off here.’ It was taking a long time to process. Normally an e-transfer takes seconds. There was a screen that popped up that said ‘Do not close this window. This transaction might take a few minutes.’”

The transaction did finally complete, but that little niggling feeling caused Pearce to check his bank account online for reassurance that the money transfer was there.

What he found instead was that instead of receiving $100, a total of $6,000 had gone missing from his accounts. Pearce had a $3,000 daily e-transfer limit set up on his accounts, which likely saved him from losing even more that day.

“I didn’t have $3,000 in my [primary] account, but he was able to go into my line of credit and do an internal transfer from there to my [primary] account and e-transfer that out.”

It didn’t end there. A second e-transfer of $3,000 had been successfully carried out from another of Pearce’s accounts.

Immediately Pearce contacted the TD Bank fraud investigation department to report what had happened. His accounts were subsequently frozen and his bank cards cancelled.

By Monday, on a visit to his local branch, the only information the investigation could provide so far was that the money had been transferred into a BMO account in an undisclosed location.

“That money is probably in Somalia buying someone a Mercedes Benz,” Pearce says ruefully.

If he’s thankful for anything, it’s that he listened to that little voice inside his head that had him verifying the money delivery. Had he not, he believes the thief would have been back in his accounts on Monday stealing whatever else he could.

Pearce has since been in contact with the RCMP where he was advised to shut off his phone until it could be professionally inspected for spyware. An IT tech assured him that it was free and clear.

Pearce provided the RCMP with the name and phone number used by the e-transfer sender. Still, with a scam this sophisticated, it’s not likely they’ll leave a trail for anyone to follow.

The incident has left Pearce feeling both shocked and let down by TD Bank, a major bank that claims to have security protocols to ensure a safe online banking experience for its clients.

At the very least, Pearce believes that clients of Canada’s banking giants deserve warnings when this kind of security breach happens, but he won’t be surprised if they choose to keep it in the proverbial vault.

“Somebody has developed a program that goes in the back door and into your account,” he says. “[The scammer] didn’t ask for my PIN or password or anything. I just gave him the email address.”

Going forward, he says, he’ll only be accepting cash for items sold online.