Fraud Awareness Month is drawing to a close but several examples from Prince George warn consumers that fraud itself is a year-round danger.
Fraud costs the Canadian economy but it can cripple living conditions for everyday people who get sucked in and lose their money.
Even established businesses can be hurt by scammers. The Citizen was even party to a suspect advertisement that was pulled before it convinced any potential victims, and hopefully before anyone was hurt by the scheme.
The ad in the classifieds, offered a front office/administrative assistant position. At least one local reader submitted a resume to the email address provided.
"We wish to inform you that the advertised position is not available anymore," came the response to her, but there was never any such job to begin with. It was the bait for the real agenda. "We have a mystery shopping assignment in your area and we would like you to participate."
The Citizen reader blew the whistle on the scam when it eventually reached the point the so-called mystery shopping opportunity required the applicant to submit a sum of her own money. Despite promises of repayment, or merely being a transaction fee, an opening transaction, or something to trigger a transfer of bigger money back to her, the reader knew this was the end of the offer's legitimacy and the beginning of her money being stolen. She ended all communication immediately and warned The Citizen.
"Never, ever give anybody any money. If it is a legitimate offer, you will not be asked for your money," said Citizen director of advertising Lu Verticchio, who has seen many such scam attempts over the years. "We try to weed out as many as we can, but they [scammers] are always looking for a new way, and if they think we are on to their ways then they change it up, so we encourage anyone who thinks they have encountered a scam to let us know right away."
Prince George resident Derek Fullerton can attest to the chameleon persistence of scammers, once they sense a victim. A phone caller convinced him, in a groggy state, that they were from Microsoft and he had a computer problem they could fix easily over the phone. He had already let the caller remotely access his computer, via the Internet, when he woke fully up to the scam potential. He immediately hung up the phone and unplugged the computer, mid-sentence, and took his computer to multiple technicians for a full clean-out of his hard drive. He was told he likely acted just in time to prevent them installing invisible programs to let the scammers read everything on his computer and use his computer without his knowledge for their own criminal purposes. Even so, when he informed his bank and credit card company of the situation the bank confirmed they had blocked a couple of unauthorized attempts to access his accounts and they linked the timing to the fraudulent phone call.
But it didn't stop there. Fullerton recognized the same scammer's voice on the phone several days later, posing as an agent for, ironically, an anti-fraud association working with the FBI to catch crooks and they were looking for his help. All he had to do was let them have remote access to his computer and give them a bank account number into which they would deposit an amount of money - $900 - he was to use in their undercover work. He would then be paid a $500 fee and receive a certificate of good citizenship for his assistance.
Fullerton was almost convinced yet again, especially when $900 showed up in his account, but his inner voice was loud enough to convince him to terminate the call.
"They had to have phoned me back 25 times in about two hours. I even call-blocked them but they had a way around that and the same number kept getting through somehow: 510-943-3040," he said. "They were really rude with me when I told them I was stopping the conversation. The guy said a lot of harsh things, gave me a schpeale about citizenship and how I was only thinking of myself and not the other people the 'bad guys' would get if I didn't help them out, told me I would have the police showing up at my door for this, and I told them go for it, I wanted them to do that, and then I didn't hear from them again."
When he reported the incidents to Canada's actual anti-fraud bureau, "they were very interested in the details of my experience," Fullerton said.
Questions about possible mail, Internet or telephone scams can go to the federal government's anti-fraud website at www.antifraudcentre.ca.
