The Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is investigating after learning that its tickets are being sold on the online black market for a fraction of the regular price.
In a post that went viral on Snapchat last week, an alleged fraudster is offering each monthly STM pass as well as an OPUS card for $60. If the client returns the following month, the same title is sold to him for only $50.
This is a saving of 47% obtained without the knowledge of the STM. In fact, the monthly pass sold at an authorized retailer is normally worth $94 per adult.
Screenshot / Snapchat
“It even cheats the trip [dans les transports en commun]I love my city too much”, writes with irony a surfer who shared the ad on social networks.
Can’t hack them
Contacted on this subject, the STM is firm: you cannot “hack” OPUS cards as the ad on the black market suggests.
“She cannot be ‘unblocked’. You have to encode a ticket on the OPUS card using one of our sales equipment or at an authorized retailer,” explains the Log its spokesperson, Justine Lord-Dufour.
Screenshot / Snapchat
The latter adds that it is not possible to simulate the addition of a false transit ticket that would work in the STM network.
bank fraud
According to Mme Lord-Dufour, the alleged fraudster is probably buying legitimate titles with stolen credit cards. The criminal then sells his loot on social networks.
“It can also happen that the title promised by the fraudster is not encoded on the card and that the customer has been tricked by paying an amount of money without obtaining a transport title in return,” she warns.
According to the Société de transport, it would therefore be a matter of bank fraud and not a scam directly linked to the OPUS card. “An investigation has been opened at the STM to ensure that our hypothesis is correct and that the OPUS card has not been hacked,” it says.
the Log contacted the Internet user behind this scheme on the social network Snapchat, but our request remained unanswered.