Something Beautiful is on the Horizon
Sleep evaded us most nights at boy racer central but over the past two weeks we had begun to acclimatise to the thundering baselines that made the bedroom walls vibrate, in fact during the day we often caught ourselves humming the tune to Post Malone or some other the rap song we heard throughout the night. In all honesty some of the music choices that we heard were not too bad and have even made it on to my iPod playlist (not Martins of course, his music choices hark back to a bygone era).
Despite a busy day spent in Halifax, the four hours of travel, nearly losing all our life savings and the consequent phone calls with the lawyer not to mention the hours spent checking email accounts and changing passwords you would have thought we would have been exhausted, and we were emotionally and physically but the worry kept us awake long into dawn, we were almost grateful for the background noise of wheels spinning and exhausts coughing and whining on the road outside the apartment …almost!
By the time morning arrived we were feeling so jaded, that the hot dribble that passes for a shower in this apartment and the instant coffee that tasted like ash trays and gave us chronic heartburn did nothing to refresh or rejuvenate us. We did need to wake ourselves up however, because today was (fingers crossed) to be an important day. We were once again heading to Halifax only this time we would be collecting a banker’s draft from the HSBC to hand directly to our lawyer, there would be no more near misses with scammers.
We were on the clock this time, the settlement had to be completed by midday and we had at least four hours of travel to accommodate so we left the apartment the antithesis of bright eyed and bushy tailed, the Barista coffee shop that we had discovered a two-minute walk from the apartment was our only redemption.
So, armed with the nectar of the gods and our poor pooch in tow we made our way to Halifax.
With no traffic on the road we made good time and before we knew it we were heading out of HSBC bank in Halifax with the flimsy bit of paper that was representative of our hopes and dreams which was tucked inside an envelope, tucked inside a plastic folder, tucked inside the compartment of our bag which was now handcuffed to Martins wrist… nothing was going to happen to this sucker!
We couldn’t thank the HSBC Service Manager who initially raised the alarm yesterday enough, we could have kissed him if we didn’t think we would get arrested. Somehow a thank you felt grossly inadequate in comparison to what he had done for us, he should have at least received a medal or had a road named after him.
Don’t ever let someone take away your happiness because it was never theirs to take.
We grabbed yet another barista coffee for the road as we made our way back to the Warlock and got on our way. With the bankers draft finally in our possession Martins excitement was palpable, my enthusiasm however was subdued, I was still reeling from what had occurred the day before, it took the entire journey to Annapolis Royal for me to snap out of it. Ultimately if I let the scammers taint what should be an amazing experience and achievement then they still win, and that was not going to happen.
We were so relieved when we finally made it to the lawyers and signed the relevant documentation, handed over the banker’s draft and completed the settlement. There was nothing left for us to do except to wait for news from Claire at Viewpoint to confirm that the payment had gone through to the vendors lawyer and that we could pick up the keys to our forever home.
With business complete we spent some time discussing yesterday’s fraud attempt with the lawyer, the lawyer claimed it was one of the most elaborate frauds he had experienced and had already reported it to the RMCP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) for investigation. These types of frauds take time, and the scammers are insidious in nature, going undetected and waiting patiently for the perfect opportunity to strike! And whilst many frauds are foiled before the worst can happen there are still many, many people out there who fall victim.
In our scenario the scammers first step was to hack Martin’s email password and gain access to his email account, the scammer then set up a forwarding email address so that all of the emails that Martin received or sent would be forwarded to the scammer. The scammer then monitored those emails waiting for an email making mention of payment, invoice, or remittance Etc. At which point the scammer intercepted the email.
In our case the scammer had picked up on an email that we had sent to the lawyers enquiring about the method of payment for the settlement, the scammer had then sent us a reply posing as the lawyer with an almost identical email address bar two digits, the reply from the scammer detailed the preferable method of settlement being a bank transfer with their own bank details inserted into the email, if successful the settlement would have made its way into the scammers account.
The lawyer gave us the contact details of the RCMP officer ‘investigating’ the attempted fraud and we gave them a call as soon as we left the lawyers office. The officer explained how difficult it would be to fully investigate this fraud and find the perpetrator, the address of the bank account that the settlement would have been paid into was in Toronto so straight away there was an issue with police jurisdictions, also the scammers had concealed their IP address which meant that it was almost impossible technologically to trace their origin.
Basically, investigating fraud on this level was too complex and the volume of frauds too many for the already under resourced police departments lacking the knowledge and skills to identify perpetrators let alone bring them to justice. It all just fell into the too hard basket, which is why there are so many frauds occuring in Canada!
Scammers in Canada had certainly put a dampener on our experience of buying a new home, we had never experienced it whilst living in NZ so were a bit naïve to its existence when moving here but our fingers have been well and truly burnt in this case! Since moving to Canada our FB accounts have been hacked, which is nothing new to most people, we also have the highest security settings for the Blog web page because we were receiving constant notifications that brute force hacking attempts are being made on the account, there were at least fifty-three attempts in one go, that is how persistent these parasites are.
We are also constantly bombarded by phone calls informing us of money we have won, packages we need to pay for or money we owe all of which are swindles, Canada recycle mobile phone numbers which makes the prevalence of nuisance and scam calls all that much greater. I have come to know the person who previously owned my cell number quite intimately.
My phone buddy is called Malcolm, he is a plumber by trade and very busy by all accounts judging by all the customers who contact me daily, I know that he is very tardy at paying his bills if his dentist and optometrist are to be believed, his brother invited me to his nephew Taylors birthday party, a friend of the family passed away recently, his kid often skips school and judging by the number of photos of spiders Malcolms sister-in-law sends me he either has a fear or love of spiders.
It doesn’t matter how many times I declare that I am not called Malcolm and that I cannot repair a leak in a U-bend the calls keep coming, It makes me feel popular if nothing else!
Although disappointed that the Police were unable to take any action we did not dwell on it, we had a lucky escape and a very important learning experience and are all the wiser for it but for now we were going to focus on our dream coming to fruition because not long after hanging up from our call with the RCMP Claire was calling to tell us the settlement had been received by the vendor and that she was now in possession of the keys to our new home, it was official, we were finally home owners.
Home is the starting place of love, hope and dreams.
We arranged with Claire to meet at our new house tomorrow morning to pick up the keys, the apartment in Liverpool was paid for and booked up for the rest of the week but there was no way on earth we were going to stay until then. As soon as we finished that call we drove back to the apartment, packed our bags, and loaded up the Warlock in record time.
This would be our last night in the apartment, we were getting out of dodge in the morning. But for now, it was time to rejoice in another huge milestone being reached in what was fast turning out to be an epic year (and we were still only in April) The storm had passed, the sky was once again bright, and the view of the horizon was glowing and beautiful. Cooped up in the apartment which was slightly more spacious minus our meagre belongings we celebrated in style over a large glass of honey whisky and a takeaway pizza… hardly rock and roll but it was a hell of a lot cheaper, after all we did just buy a house!
It was time to bid farewell to the boy racers, the bijou apartment and the strange but amusing fire hydrants of Liverpool – another adventure was awaiting us.
