Ontario Provincial Police said they were able to recover some funds from a “tech service fraud” scam in which the scammer pretended to be a representative from Bell Canada.

The OPP said the scam was reported on Feb. 19 when an Oxford Mills, Ont., resident received a phone call from someone impersonating a Bell Canada employee.

The employee called about upgrading the router due to the recent installation of fibre-optic lines, police said.

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“The victim was instructed to download remote entry software to her device, at which point the bad actor informed the victim that a virus had been found, requiring the matter to be escalated,” police said.

Police said the victim was told to log in to online banking, where the scammer manipulated the victim’s accounts, causing the victim to believe an overpayment had been made.

“The bad actor directed the victim to attend their financial institution on multiple occasions where wire transfers of the ‘overpayment’ were made to a US financial institution,” police said.

The OPP said it contacted the United States Secret Service about the wire transfers, who contacted the U.S. bank that received the transfers.

“As a result, the victim’s financial institution will be working on recovering portions of the funds,” the OPP said.

The force did not disclose how much money was lost in the scam.

There is no word on any arrests involving the scam.

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