March is Fraud Prevention Month in Canada, and while it turns out Canadians are being more vigilant about fraud prevention, it still happens. Arming yourself with knowledge will keep you protected, so here’s the seven of the most common scams to watch for:
- Sweepstakes: this might be one of the oldest scams around, but if you get a call or email saying you’ve won a lottery or contest, you will never have to pay fees or taxes in order to claim your prize. This one is commonly associated with travel giveaways, but again, you would never be asked to pay something if it was legitimate.
- Employment from home: this is a popular one right now with unemployment on the rise in Calgary, seemingly professional companies are contacting people offering work from home opportunities. Any job that requests your personal information over the phone or Internet (especially banking information) is not a legitimate offer.
- Government grants: this one may make mention of programs heard about in the media, but you’d be contacted about collecting a government grant award for a large sum of money (thousands of dollars), as long as you pay the fees to collect. This is not how government grants work, and again you should never delve out personal or financial information over phone or email.
- Copycat website: these are emails or social media posts that look legitimate but ask you for personal information, like credit card numbers. These may look like deals or could be companies for which you have accounts setup already, for example PayPal has long been victim to this scam which mimics their website asking members for updated financial information. If you are being asked for personal or banking information online, don’t give anything without calling and verifying with the company, and don’t trust links you receive in emails if they’re asking you for information.
- Canada Revenue Agency: this has been a big one this year, scammers are calling Canadians posing as CRA, saying they have outstanding taxes due that need to be paid immediately. These scammers ask for credit card numbers over the phone and threaten jail time or steep fines. CRA has already come out and stated that this is not how they do business and you’d never be contacted this way for such a thing, so never hand out your financial information if you get a call like this.
- Tech support: this tends to be in the form of a phone call, from someone claiming to be from a major company (Apple, Microsoft, etc.) saying there’s a problem with your device. This fake “tech support” asks for access to your hard drive, and then they install malware to steal your personal information. They may also skip this step entirely and just request your personal information.
- Emergency: this scam tends to target seniors, but the scammers pose as relatives and call or email claiming they’ve been injured, robbed or arrested while travelling overseas. The scammer requests money be sent right away to help them in their supposed emergency.
If you think you’ve fallen victim to a scam or suspect a scammer of contacting you, you are asked to report it to your local police, and you can also report it with Better Business Bureau online.
