Phishing scam targets Town of Aurora Facebook page

Gift card giveaway participants asked by scammers for personal information

Yorkregion.com
July 25, 2023
Laura Broadley

Aurora residents need to be vigilant after some people were conned into giving away personal information to a fake town Facebook account, local officials say.

The phishing scam, where thieves pretend to be from a reputable company or organization, started after a legitimate Starbucks gift card giveaway was posted on the Town of Aurora’s official Facebook page on July 13.

The giveaway is being promoted through the town’s social media pages with the goal of getting people to sign up for newsletters with information about what’s happening in Aurora.

“Unfortunately, there’s a fake Town of Aurora account and it has the same logo. We’ve reported it to Facebook,” said Daniel Bitonti, manager of communications.

On July 17, the town posted again saying staff was aware of a fake account that was messaging people.

“We were very clear in our post that we would never ask for credit card information,” Bitonti said.

Some people did give the fake account personal information and those people were messaged privately by staff and encouraged to contact their banks.

Bitonti said staff is doing research on how to limit and mitigate the risk of scams during giveaways.

“We’re going to take a little bit of a hiatus after this giveaway to regroup,” he said. “It’s really unfortunate, and of course we regret any trouble this has caused.”