Deepfakes, generative AI, and sophisticated scammers are threatening Canadians, one advisor explains her multi-layered approach to protection
Tina Tehranchian was sitting in a fraud prevention seminar run by an RCMP officer when a client emailed her with an urgent request. The client, saying they had laryngitis and couldn’t talk on the phone, said they needed to withdraw a significant sum of money to purchase property in the UK. Tehranchian, a senior wealth advisor at Assante Capital Management Ltd., was wary about the request even though it came from her client’s real email address. She asked her assistant to call the client, and before the seminar was done she had discovered the request was an attempt at a scam.
Speaking to the RCMP officer following his presentation, Tehranchian told him about the attempted scam. He told her to respond to the email saying she’d wire the money and ask for the scammer’s banking information so it could be flagged. With the approval of her compliance officer she did so and helped both protect her client and prevent future scams from this account at least.
That story, Tehranchian says, demonstrates how advisors need to stay constantly vigilant against scammers today. She sees a rising trend of tech-driven scams run by sophisticated operators using every rhetorical and psychological lever possible to separate Canadians from their hard-earned savings. She explained how she works to educate herself, her team, and her clients to help prevent these scams from achieving their intended damage.
“It's becoming more frequent because the technology that the scammers are using is improving. There are all sorts of deepfake videos, deepfake audios, they can pretend to be someone close to you. Older people are getting calls from people who are claiming to be their grandchild, and they're in desperate need,” Tehranchian says. “So it is very, very difficult to tell what's true and what's not. And as financial advisors we have a duty of care to our clients. And we have to make sure that we are vigilant about these tactics. Unfortunately, it's not just older, vulnerable people who fall for them, even very sophisticated people, even advisors sometimes fall for these tactics.”
Tehranchian’s first line of defense is education. The more advisors and clients learn about the kinds of scams now out there, the better they can protect against them. She notes that clients are keen to learn more about cybersecurity, a recent webinar she hosted on the subject was one of her best-attended.
While education is key, Tehranchian advocates for certain behavioural checks to help prevent scams. Operating on something that resembles the Swiss cheese model, where holes in one layer of security are covered by another layer behind it, she says that checking herself and her clients for urgency can help moderate behaviour and flag scams. Frauds often impose a sense of urgency onto a transaction or decision, hoping that the advisor or client will be too rushed to double check the email address or the destination for the funds. Slowing down, Tehranchian says, can go a long way to preventing fraud as it allows for a deeper interrogation or verification by another communication channel.
Tehranchian also flags unusual links or destinations. She cites the example of an email from her own branch manager, sent from his professional account, that made a request for a file to be uploaded onto Dropbox. Tehranchian was suspicious, because Assante doesn’t use Dropbox. Even though the email was from her branch manager, and Dropbox is a widely used filesharing service, the fact that this process was outside the norm was enough for her to be suspicious. She called her manager and learned the email was a phishing test, one she passed with flying colours. It reminded her that even the smallest differences in process can be a sign of something much bigger.
While Tehranchian knows that anyone can be a victim of financial fraud, she is also aware that many older clients are especially vulnerable. Whether that’s because they aren’t digital native and tend to trust things they read online, or because of declining mental capacity, Tehranchian takes special care to ensure these clients are as educated and protected as possible. The role of the trusted contact person (TCP) is essential to her approach, as these individuals can often intervene from a place of strong personal trust. Given the way scammers will often create and exploit relationships with their victims, making that person more defensive about external intervention, a trusted personal relation like the TCP can be hugely important.
Just as she takes special care around her older clients, Tehranchian remains aware that anyone can be a victim. When younger clients scoff at the idea that they might be defrauded, Tehranchian will use the power of storytelling to demonstrate how common these scams are and how easy it is to fall for them. Those stories can help drive home the idea that anyone might become a victim, and can even demonstrate to other advisors the responsibility they have to protect against fraud.
“I hope that advisors will educate themselves as much as possible, try to educate their clients, and educate their team and staff because they have to be vigilant all the time, too,” Tehranchian says. “Trying different methods of communication, trying to verify things before you click on any link or open any attachment, these are all protective measures that will really pay off. Not following them can have severe consequences for the advisory team, for the company, for the clients. So these things should not be taken lightly. There's a real danger out there and we are all exposed to that danger.”
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of Assante Capital Management Ltd.
