Vancouver woman wins identity fraud battle with Bell Mobility after posting on social media

It’s been four gloriously quiet days since Erica Phillips last heard from the collection agencies, who have been calling her two or three times a day for months, demanding payment of hundreds of dollars owed in a Bell Mobility account bearing her name, that she never opened.

“It’s a huge sense of relief,” she said. “It’s so nice to know this won’t continue to be a daily reminder of something that shouldn’t have been my problem in the first place.”

The Vancouver woman says she has fought the company for more than two years with little response, filing documents proving the account was opened in her name fraudulently, while making reports to police, credit agencies and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center.

She says the relief from the collection calls came only after she turned to news outlets and shared her frustrations on social media.

“I took all the right paths,” she said. “I didn’t want to go public, but I felt compelled to do so,” she said.

Phillips’ ordeal began in 2020 when she received notes from Rogers and Bell Mobility at an old address saying she owed money. She says she wasn’t a customer of either company, so she thought it was a phishing scam. Further investigation revealed that impersonators had used her personal information to open the accounts on her behalf.

She says Rogers acted quickly to terminate the account when she contacted her, but Bell Mobility did not.

“It struck me as insane at first that one company would do it so easily and the other wouldn’t,” Phillips said.

In an emailed statement, Bell Mobility told CBC:

“We have conducted an investigation and determined that this account was fraudulent. We are attempting to contact the customer and have alerted our affiliated credit agencies to the billing error.”

The Consumer Protection BC website contains information on how to prevent identity theft. It also has forms and advice for people who are being pursued by a company or collection agency for a claim that is not theirs.

Identity fraud and identity theft are criminal offenses but have become lucrative thanks to technological advances Office of the Data Protection Commissioner of Canada.

In 2021 the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center has issued an alert following a spike in reports of identity fraud.

“Scammers use personal information about Canadians to apply for government benefits, credit cards, bank accounts, cell phone accounts, or even take over social media and email accounts,” it said.

Phillips says her social media post received more than 100,000 views in just one night. She was surprised by the number of people who have reached out to her to say they too have been victims of identity fraud.

“It’s amazing the comments I’m getting now on all the different stories from people in similar situations,” she said. “It’s crazy.”

She says Bell Mobility hasn’t apologized.

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