Photo: Casey Richardson

A Penticton strata was unsuccessful in its effort to have a company cover the costs of a lost deposit after falling victim to an email scam.

According to a decision published by the Civil Resolution Tribunal (CRT) on Feb. 14, the owners of a condo building on Wade Avenue are out $3,554.78 and the company they hired has been found not at fault for the mishap.

The strata hired Limitless EV Enterprise to install an electric vehicle charger in July 2023.

The strata alleged Limitless "negligently caused its $3,554.78 deposit for installation of an electric vehicle charger to be misdirected, by using an unsecured email address for e-transfer payments."

However, Limitless disputed this and claimed it never received the strata’s deposit by e-transfer. The company instead said it was the strata's decision, since they failed to check the email address before e-transferring the deposit, despite instructions on the invoice to contact them if there were signs of fraud.

According to the CRT decision, in the invoice for the $3,554.78 deposit, e-transfer was offered as a payment option, and included an “@outlook.com” email address.

"At the bottom of the invoice were instructions to check with the business owner before paying upon receipt of an 'email that seems fraudulent.' For reasons that are not explained, the strata manager emailed the Outlook address later that morning to ask if the deposit could be e-transferred," the decision reads.

Shortly after, the strata received an email back from a different email address ending in @gmail.com, confirming they could pay to the new email address attached. The email was determined to have included "unusual spacing, punctuation, and capitalization."

The strata manager then proceeded with the payment to the scam artist's email.

In August 2023, the strata paid Limitless the deposit by cheque, and in September 2023, they successfully e-transferred the final invoice amount.

Tribunal Member Megan Stewart wrote in that making her decision, she heavily relied on a recent BC Supreme Court decision which faced a similar dilemma.

Stewart added that the question to be answered is "whether the strata or Limitless most enabled the fraudster."

While Limitless acknowledged there was a breach of the Outlook address’ security, the tribunal determined that the strata manager overlooked warning signs, including suspicious emails and a request to use a different email address.

"It was the strata’s actions that most enabled the payment to be misdirected. In these circumstances, I dismiss the strata’s claims," the decision reads.

The strata will not be reimbursed for the misdirected e-transfer deposit and the CRT fees.

Limitless Company Owner Jackson Stirling reached out to Castanet to provide a comment on the decision.

"Firstly, our sympathies lie with the strata members and residents of this community. We have ourselves fallen victim to cybercrime in the past so know how it feels to be deceived," he said in an emailed statement on behalf of himself and the company.

"Our feedback at the time of this incident (to the property manager who paid on the strata's behalf) was to notify the bank immediately to have the fraudulent transaction reversed, in addition to consulting their liability insurance."

Since this incident, Stirling they have taken (even more) steps to bolster the company's online security in order to do the best they can to avoid this kind of situation and protect clients.

"We pride ourselves on great client relationships which can be seen from our many reviews and testimonials- all of which are 5 star. This serves as an unsavoury reminder of what is happening in society, and we urge everyone to remain vigilant."

*Editor's note: This article has been edited to include the comment provided by Limitless EV Enterprise.