Tax Scam Spreads Throughout BC
Prince George, B.C. – Police across the province are trying to get the word out about a scam that is claiming numerous victims and thousands of dollars on a daily basis. The hope is that you will help pass the information along to family, friends and co-workers to prevent them from becoming victims as well.
This is a telephone scam in which the caller claims to be from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) but is not. Callers have been threatening taxpayers or using aggressive and forceful language to scare them into paying fictitious tax debts to the CRA. The caller requests immediate payment by credit card or convinces the victims to purchase a prepaid credit card (the CRA never requests prepaid credit cards) and call back immediately with the information. The taxpayer is often threatened with court charges, jail or deportation.
North District RCMP Media Relations spokesperson Cpl. Dave Tyreman says the scam has been successful because the caller is very aggressive, and if hung up on, will keep calling back. And the organizers have employed some sophisticated computer technology with calls sometimes being routed through systems that can display any phone number the scammer chooses. Recently they’ve used the local RCMP Detachment phone number from the area where the call is received.
If a caller identifies themselves as a police officer, ask for their name and badge number and tell the caller you will phone them back through the non-emergency number of the police agency where you live. Make sure you obtain this number through verified channels, such as the White Pages of your phone book or a police agency website.
If you want to confirm that a CRA representative has contacted you, call the CRA at 1-800-959-8281 for individual concerns or 1-800-959-5525 for business-related calls.
You should be extremely cautious if you receive a telephone, mail, text message or email communication that claims to be from the CRA and is requesting personal information. If you suspect that you’ve been contacted by a scammer, note the phone number showing on call display and contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, toll free at 1-888-495-8501 or online at www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca.
Comments
To be sure things from any business, ie VISA, CRS, MASTERCARD, banks
call them back at a known phone number.
Any reputable business will tell you if there is a problem with your account and allow you to phone them back them or come into the office.
if they don’t you can be pretty sure it is a scam…HANG UP and notify the police and the business involved.
same with lottery winnings, hard to win if you didn’t buy a ticket…and they never never never ask you to pay a handling fee up front, or a fee period for that matter.
have a safe day all
I would hope that the power houses of the CRA and the RCMP would be able to track down and shut down an operation such as this.
They use bait cars to catch car thieves. How about trying bait telephone numbers?
If scammers are so “sophisticated” in their capabilities one would think the RCMP would be able to do the same.
This must be a problem in more than the US and Canada. Someone must have developed a better telephone scam trap (TST). If not, perhaps an ex-hack can create one.
the big thing about telemarketers that really ticks me off is that they can and do tell the government how they are going to use my phone, and the government agrees… they have more right to my phone than I do.
I don’t think telemarketers, (I don’t care who they are, what they are selling or polling), should be calling my phone unless I have signed up somewhere to receive those calls.
The do not call registry is a laugh, it almost seems the telemarketers get that phone number as soon as it is registered and the calls never stop.
Add another scam to this list. A california based number called my house, they claimed to be the “Utilities Billing Corporation”. This guy was quite adamant that I owed for an outstanding utilities bill. Knowing full well that it was a scam, I asked which utility I owed for? He responded it was for water and sewer. I let him rant and threaten me with the immediate shut off of my water and that they would be taking me to court for the bill. When I had enough of the story, I told him that he was a telephone scam artist. He became further enraged and started shouting at me, this is when I told him to “go ahead and cut off my water then! I have not paid a water/sewer bill in 17 yrs, and I wont start now..I live beyond city limits you fool…I have my own well and sewer system” and hung up. He then called me back, berating me in his foreign tongue.
Another regular scam is from a representative from “microsoft” who claims that my computer is overrun with viruses and offers to fix it.
I wonder just how many people these guys manage to dupe into paying. The unfortunate part is that law enforcement are pretty much powerless to do anything. Dont bother calling the RCMP, unless of course the scammers give you a legitimate return phone number or address (never seen this happen yet). Best defence is not to answer “toll free service” calls, let your voicemail answer…they dont normally leave a mesg. It is unfortunate that the National Do Not Call Registry does not work. Dont become a victim! NEVER, NEVER give out personal info, or credit card # without getting their info and calling them back. 99% its a scam. CRA got a nasty response from me once. When I discovered it was real, I apologized and told them to use someone who speaks better english.
go buy your self an Answering Machine , for 20 bucks gives you Piece of Mind and you know what they never leave a Message on it, works great for us!
I agree with you Outwest, I let my answering machine answer all calls that have number that I am unfamiliar with. They never leave a message.
Maybe we have a much deeper Problem , are People that lonely , so we talk to anyone just for that Reason ?
First, try calling one of those two numbers. Depending on time of day or year, you’ll get a busy signal.
Second, if you ever do deal with CRA collections, at the end of the discussion, they’ll give you a very threatening legal warning if you don’t comply with the terms agreed to. So the scammer isn’t so far off of the truth.
Now, I’m in this business, and I’ve had 3 client’s phone me terrified of these idiots. One thing they all had in common – elderly, a listed phone number, and active on social media.
So, the best defense, don’t list your number, that way they won’t be able to say Mr. Smith, you owe taxes. Use call display, and don’t respond to numbers you don’t recognize.
The worst defense, expect the RCMP to do anything about it. They barely have the resources necessary to deal with person and property crime never mind a scammer who convinces someone to give them a credit card number voluntarily.
What also amazes me, is all 3 client’s who called, all had refunds that year, so why would they even begin to believe it was true. Maybe they just wanted to talk.
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