RCMP have a warning for anyone with a debit or credit card following a major fraud bust in Halifax.
A fraud investigator is urging everyone with a bank account not to get lazy about protecting it over the long weekend - one of fraudsters' favorite times to strike.
Banks keep spending profiles on customers, which helps them flag spending activity out of the ordinary. However on long weekends, spending habits change as people travel and take out cash for vacation.
"If someone were to obtain your personal information and make a duplicate card and say travel from Halifax through Truro and purchase some gasoline and onto New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island or elsewhere and make some purchases it wouldn't be detected as quickly when you've got a large number of people all doing the same thing," says RCMP Cpl. Mike Kydd.
He says people also don't check their account as often when on vacation, meaning unauthorized transactions might go unnoticed.
"Check your bank transactions as frequently as you can as you can, either over the internet or what have you," says Kydd. "If you detect an irregularity, notify your bank immediately and notify police."
The warning comes after a 22-year-old man was arrested for fraud charges related to debit card skimming at CIBC bank machines in Halifax. Police report thousands of dollars were stolen from bank accounts and several devices were seized, including one that reads the magnetic strip on your card, and video cameras to record pin numbers.
Kydd says chances are, if you're missing funds, there's a large number of other people in the same boat.
He says the best defence to finding the nasty surprise of a cleaned-out bank account, is to protect yourself.
"Protect your pin, make sure there's no one shoulder surfing, looking over your shoulder as you enter your pin number," says Kydd.