Scam warning: Canadians receiving fake $90 Rogers rebate after outage

Jul 20 2022, 4:05 pm

A phishing scam is taking place across Canada, nearly two weeks after the nationwide Rogers outage.

The scam is sending text messages designed to look like a $90 rebate sent from the communication company.

While speaking with Daily Hive, Wendy Wu shared examples of how authentic the scam looks.

Wu says she got a text message saying that as a result of the outage, she was set to receive $90. “The text message has a link on it which directs you to a phishing website, attempting to steal people’s banking login information,” she says.

It reroutes users to accept the $90 rebate, using cloned websites that look like financial institutions accessible across Canada.

Wendy Wu/Submitted

Wendy Wu/Submitted

Wendy Wu/Submitted

Rogers says it does not text customers about credits following the outage and that all credits will be automatically applied to customers’ accounts.

“We will apply the credit proactively to your account and no action is required,” says Rogers Helps — the official customer care and technical support branch of the communications company. If users receive a suspicious SMS, Rogers asks customers to forward it to 7726 (SPAM).

You can learn more about scam and fraud prevention on Rogers’ website.

On July 8, Rogers service went out for more than 12 hours, causing an unprecedented communications outage that affected everything from transit and 911 service to banking and internet access for millions of Canadians.

Ty JadahTy Jadah

+ Venture
+ Tech
ADVERTISEMENT