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While chatting with Rogers support, Hunter received an email from PayPal, alerting him to an email address change. A few minutes later, wifi alertson his phone let him know that three charges each of $3,700 for a Canadian appliance company had been placed on his Visa. Just 12 minutes had passed between Hunter being alerted to the carrier change and the last of the three charges.

Like clockwork, they knew they were on limited time, I guess, for me to react to it

What happened to Hunter was unauthorized porting — a new type of scam that targets digital users.

Under Canadian law, customers can retain their phone numbers when moving to a new carrier, in a process called porting, ordered by the CRTC in 2005. The CRTC determined that the entire process should take no longer than two-and-a-half hours.

“Like clockwork, they knew they were on limited time, I guess, for me to react to it,” said Hunter of whoever orchestrated the scam.

“Eventually, I got all the bleeding stopped, I got my credit card cancelled … I got PayPal — that took forever, what a hassle that was — fully restored to me.”

Hunter was able to regain access to his phone number later that day and his PayPal account later that week, but he said the experience has left him stressed and paranoid about digital security. His weekend was spent combing through his online accounts and updating passwords.

Now Hunter, who considers himself tech-savvy, is warning others of the complicated scam that works to get around two-factor authentication security protocols that are now popular with savvy digital users.