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Fin septembre, Thérèse Beauchemin, a caregiver from Val-d’Or, is looking to increase her income with an online job. On TikTok, she comes across a video of a woman named Ghislaine presenting an opportunity to make money with an online store. “Some stores generate so much income that you could retire fairly quickly,” Ghislaine says in the video, inviting people to reach out to her to learn more.
Thérèse contacts Ghislaine, who explains that it is possible to invest online in 7-Eleven convenience stores and earn a commission on sales. This woman in her late fifties, with a blunt bob, slightly wrinkled, speaking with a Quebecois accent on TikTok, inspires confidence in her. “Ghislaine, to me, was like a grandmother,” says Thérèse.
Not very tech-savvy, Ghislaine entrusts Thérèse to the care of a certain Camilla Lopez in Toronto. The two women chat for hours on the Telegram app, in French.
Step by step, Camilla guides Thérèse in creating an account on the cryptocurrency platform Newton, which will allow her to invest in 7-Eleven.
Promises of returns
Once these formalities are completed, Thérèse jumps in. On a 7-Eleven app installed on her iPhone, she can invest her money in a convenience store with a simple tap. For example, the first one she chooses, the “premium” one, costs $1580 US and is supposed to bring in $55 to $65 US per day.
More than 80 other Quebec investors are part of the same “team” as Thérèse in a Telegram group.
Within this group, Thérèse quickly befriends Guylaine Dorval, from Sherbrooke. Like her, Guylaine is a caregiver and is 53 years old. She wants to work from home to have time to help her daughter, who has a learning disability, graduate from high school.
Guylaine also caught wind of the opportunity to invest in 7-Eleven by watching Ghislaine’s TikTok video. But from the beginning, she is wary and decides to invest in the smallest proposed convenience store, which costs $260 US and is supposed to bring in $10 to $12 per day.
To verify if it’s a scam, Guylaine tries to withdraw small amounts. Surprise: the transaction works. “When you know you’re receiving money, that you can withdraw, it’s enticing,” she says. “Because you think to yourself, ‘it’s not a scam, I can withdraw.'”
“We were pinching ourselves”
To operate their convenience stores, Thérèse and Guylaine work hard. They choose the products to sell, such as chips, ice cream, soft drinks, and alcohol. And every day, they have to share screenshots of their daily sales reports.
Thérèse and Guylaine can earn bonuses if they succeed in recruiting other investors. So, they persuade family members or friends to join. Guylaine convinces 7 people; Thérèse, 3.
On the 7-Eleven platform, they are constantly encouraged to “upgrade” their convenience stores. Attracted by a Halloween promotion, a friend of Guylaine, for example, transfers $2600 in cryptocurrency to switch to the “Shopping mall” convenience store, one of the biggest, which promises to bring in $400 per day.
In nearly a month, Guylaine and her partner invest more than $8000 in their convenience stores. Thérèse goes up to $20,000. Some of their relatives take out bank loans to invest in 7-Eleven.
It’s worth it, they think. Their income grows daily on the 7-Eleven platform, justifying their investments. “We were pinching ourselves,” says Thérèse. “Everyone was saying, ‘it’s too good to be true.'”
Panic
On the morning of November 2, Guylaine and Thérèse feel that something is wrong. They realize that their recent withdrawals did not work. Then, they receive a notification from the convenience store chain asking them to pay hundreds of dollars in taxes for Guylaine and several thousand dollars for Thérèse.
“We were panicking. We said to ourselves, ‘that’s it, we’ve just been scammed,'” Thérèse says.
On Telegram, there is confusion among investors. Some refuse to believe it’s a scam and suggest paying their taxes. Others, like Ludivine from Montreal, who lost $3300, try to warn as many investors as possible before they are swindled out of even more money.
In the course of her conversations, Ludivine is invited to join a Telegram group of victims of the 7-Eleven fraud from around the world, from Canada to the Philippines, to Belgium. In the group, there are 612 members.
Ludivine learns horrifying stories that have occurred abroad. People who have drained their lines of credit or family allowances to invest in fake convenience stores. A mother whose son committed suicide after falling victim to the scam.
In the span of 48 hours, between November 2 and 4, as tempers flare in Quebec in the 7-Eleven discussion groups, everything falls apart. The app stops working. Camilla Lopez disappears. Investors can no longer withdraw the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars they have placed in convenience stores.
To convince victims to pay false taxes, the scam artists “suspended” their transaction accounts.
In hindsight, Guylaine and Thérèse do the math: including their own losses, as well as those of the relatives they recruited, they lost $113,461 in this scam.
“I really regret it, a lot,” says Guylaine, her voice choked. “Because I put people in a mess that they shouldn’t have been in.”
Since the scheme was exposed, Thérèse is consumed with guilt for recruiting her loved ones, even though she didn’t know she was being scammed as well. “I’m ashamed,” she says. “We all think we’re immune to this kind of fraud, but in the end, we’re being duped. It’s the desire for a better life that makes us fall.”
“We all got fooled”
Reached by phone by the Coops de l’information, Ghislaine, the author of the TikTok video, claims to have created this promotion on her own initiative. She says she did it to recruit investors at 7-Eleven, thinking she would also receive commissions.
Ghislaine adds that she regrets inadvertently encouraging people to lose money in a scam. “We all got fooled,” she says.
Complaint to the Police
Shortly after discovering the scam, Guylaine filed a complaint with the Sherbrooke police, who confirmed to the Coops de l’information that they had received it.
“Cases like this, we have them every day,” laments Martin Carrier, a spokesperson for the Sherbrooke police. “People get caught every day.”
Investigations into this type of fraud are often conducted in collaboration with the Sûreté du Québec and the RCMP, where Ludivine and Thérèse also filed complaints. The investigative work is “extremely complex,” as the fraudsters frequently come from abroad, explains Mr. Carrier.
As in the case of fake 7-Eleven, schemes based on the lure of gain often require victims to work while being scammed, notes Mr. Carrier. This way, they feel it’s a legitimate way to earn money.
But it’s an illusion. “When we say, ‘it’s too good to be true,'” he says, “it’s often because it’s not true.”
#complices #dune #fraude #sur #TikTok #leur #insu
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