With a recent cryptocurrency fraud costing a victim over $100K last May, schemes convincing people to hand over as much money as they can over fiction is big business. And that’s just from the cases which are reported to police.
They’ve also come a long way from the old “Nigerian prince” scams, where the victim pays money to exiled royalty expecting to receiving a massive lump sum of cash in return. Needless to say, the “royalty” is just someone who sent out millions of the same emails to random addresses, hoping to hook someone in.
Those scams still rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars yearly despite how well known they are.
However, they’re sometimes not so obvious.
“It starts off at a social networking site,” says Constable Jeff Hare of the Ontario Provincial Police, referring to the cryptocurrency scheme mentioned earlier in this article. “Somebody identifies as somebody else, they build a relationship and once you have that, you can say you’re anything. Once somebody is invested, once somebody feels like they can trust, people seem to start handing over money.”
If you think that only the elderly or gullible are susceptible, think again.
“It seems to be impacting everybody,” says Constable Hare. “We’re even having teenagers that are being affected by it. Not financially but from an extortion point of view where teenagers are on social media sites and they’re exposing themselves. Next thing you know we’re looking at an extortion where somebody is asking them ‘hey, you better get this, you better come here, you better do this or we’re gonna share the images that we’ve captured with everybody’.”
With the wide variety of frauds out there, it may seem daunting for some to find ways to protect themselves.
“If somebody calls you, and it sounds too good to be true, it likely is,” says Constable Hare. “Slow down, don’t be afraid to hang up. You’re not going to hurt their feelings. All they’re going to do is go onto the next person who’s maybe not going to hang up.”
He also says to not give out personal information, never let them access your computer, and if you receive a suspicious email from a personal friend, reach out and ask them if they sent it. People behind these scams are highly sophisticated and it is very easy to become a victim and get caught up in it.
For people who are being targeted by these scams, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is the site to visit. It not only covers numerous common scams, it also has resources available for people who are victims of fraud and ways to protect yourself.
#kNOwfraud #showmetheFRAUD #BeScamSmart https://t.co/SJv1GsmTPG
— Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (@canantifraud) June 30, 2022
If you are a victim of fraud, he also emphasizes how important it is to contact police.
“Out of all the frauds that are reported, it’s suspected that only 5% are actually reported. 95% of frauds aren’t reported. So you’re talking about millions upon millions, maybe even billions, of dollars that are being lost and it’s not being reported because people feel so embarrassed by it.”
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