Winnipeg man lost nearly $11K after hackers got into his Bell MTS email account

A Winnipeg senior warns everyone who has a MyMTS email address that they should increase their security after thieves hacked into his account and stole nearly $11,000 last year.

Winnipeg police say MyMTS email accounts have fewer security features, making them easier to compromise, according to court documents obtained by CBC News. 

Dennis Popkes, 76, was heading to a funeral in December 2022 when he realized his cellphone wasn't working.

He went into his email to try to figure out what was wrong with the account, but when he entered the answer to a security question, it wasn't accepted. So he called Bell MTS technical support. 

"He says, 'Someone has gotten into your account ahead of you and changed your answers.' And I said, 'What?'" Popkes said.

WATCH | How hackers got into Dennis Popkes's Bell MTS email account:

Popkes later learned he was a victim of SIM swapping. That's when someone claims to have lost their phone or gives another excuse to get a phone company to provide a new SIM card.

In Popkes's case, someone in Edmonton logged into his account and ordered a new SIM card online while pretending to be him.

This is the second time someone has gotten into his email. The last time was in August 2021, and Bell assured him that would be the end of it.

"They said, 'Sorry, sorry, sorry, this will never happen again, we've marked your file,' and a year and four months later … they got the motherlode. They got the SIM card changed," Popkes said. 

Once hackers got into Popkes's email, they were able to access his bank accounts, credit cards and other accounts, like Costco, Amazon and Paypal, he said.

They went into those accounts and changed the billing address to one in Edmonton and changed the contact number to the phone number associated with the new SIM card. 

By the time they were done, they had spent $10,770.67 of Popkes's money. Luckily for him, he eventually recovered the money from his banks and credit card companies.

"As a senior, you got no way to make that up," he said. "As you get older, losing $11,000 on a fixed income is hard."