This man lost his life savings to identity fraud. He doesn’t know how it happened [Video]

When Rick Hall discovered most of his life savings had been drained from his bank account, he suspected he had been hacked. 

The first clue came when his password didn’t work. Then, once he regained access, he saw that on Feb. 17 a total of $28,710 had been transferred to an unknown credit card account.

“There was $249 left in the bank account,” Hall said. “It’s quite shocking when you have bills to pay.”

The 66-year-old Halifax, N.S., man said the theft amounted to more than his partner makes in a year working at McDonald’s.

Cybersecurity expert Claudiu Popa said it’s a classic case of identity fraud.

“We call these account takeovers,” he said.

Popa, who is the CEO of Datarisk Canada and the founder of KnowledgeFlow, a cyber safety foundation, said account takeovers have a dual …