Luxury SUV fraudulently purchased in B.C. with $156K loan and a stolen identity.
A Calgary woman got the surprise of her life this holiday season after fraud artists allegedly used a fake ID to buy themselves a luxury SUV.
Alana Higgins only found out about the vehicle and the hefty loan attached when she received a letter from the Bank of Nova Scotia saying she was in arrears. However, she ignored the letter at first because she has no accounts with Scotiabank.
“You get so much junk mail nowadays, a lot of times you get letters with credit card numbers from other banks,” explained Higgins. “I just kind of pushed it to the side to look at it later on.”
After reading the letter more carefully, Higgins visited a Scotiabank branch to try and clear what she thought was just a mistake at first.
Alberta address, B.C. licence
According to Higgins, bank staff told her the loan was issued at a Land Rover dealership, for more than $156,000. The alleged fraud artists provided what appeared to be a tax return, without a social insurance number, for a credit check.
“I had some tears … but I’m more mad that someone got away with such a large sum of money in my name,” said Higgins.
They also used a British Columbia driver’s licence as identification — despite the loan being issued to an Alberta address.
Higgins said her friends and family are baffled that someone was able to drive such an expensive vehicle off the Land Rover Kelowna lot in this situation.
“They don’t understand how somebody could walk off a lot with a luxury vehicle with hardly any identification that should have raised flags during security checks,” said Higgins.
