Email & Phone Scams 101
Last week, I was purchasing a mouse at Best Buy and at the checkout counter I noticed CRA pamphlets. They were warning about scams involving Best Buy credit cards.
It seems seniors are getting phone calls from scammers claiming that they owe money to Canadian Revenue Agency. They then request that victims pay the debt using prepaid Best Buy cards. Similar email attacks with iTune cards and direct Interact transfers have occurred in Canada. But it seems that phone scams are also starting to make a come back.
So what can you do?
Educate Yourself.
Knowledge is power! Using the legitimate resources you can educate yourself about these scams called 'phishing'. Phishing scams always involve fooling you into thinking they are legitimate. They achieve this by stealing correct Logos and header and footers from legitimate sources. They will then use that to craft fake email and websites always intended to take your personal information and credit card details.
Canadian Police provide other details at http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams-fraudes/phishing-eng.htm
Know Canadian Regulations
We get bombarded by a lot of American scary cop drama but that is not reality. Canadian Revenue Agency has the best online resource cra.gc.ca/fraudprevention.
According to Canadian Regulations, they will never:
use aggressive language
threaten with policy action
accept payments by prepaid credit cards