‘Don’t let your guard down’: Collingwood OPP says stay vigilant as scammers increase activity during COVID-19

Whether it’s telephone messages claiming to represent the CRA or a young person claiming to be a grandchild, fraudsters are continuing to try and scam people out of their money.

“This is still happening,” said OPP Cons. Martin Hachey. “Even though COVID has happened and a lot of things have changed, this hasn’t changed. Be aware, don’t let your guard down.”

Hachey said there are a host of scams ongoing that have fraudsters looking for victims.

The Prize Scam is one, where a prize has been won however ‘fees’ need to be paid for administration, shipping or for brokerage purposes. 

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) scam is another, where a caller advises the intended victim that they owe taxes to the CRA and must pay immediately via gift cards or cryptocurrency or face jail time.

The Tech Support scam sees the victim receive a warning that a virus has infected their computer and the scammer needs access to fix the problem. Then, they hack the computer, encrypt the hard drive and demand money, before releasing the files.

The Emergency or Grand Parent Scam sees the fraudster claiming to be a loved one who needs money to help them as they were involved in a crash, have been arrested, or need to return from a foreign country. 

Also, a romance scam recently saw a .

Hachey said residents should never give out personal information of any kind, including banking information, credit-card numbers or social-insurance numbers.

“They are very good at what they do,” he said. “Everything is a lie and that’s where tracking it is very difficult.”

The Canadian Anti-Fraud centre said the pandemic has led to more activity among scammers.

“Many Canadians are spending more time at home,” said Lisanne Roy Beauchamp, operations supervisor for the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. “As a result, fraudsters have upped their attempts to contact potential victims by phone and online. A correlation can be made between Covid-19 frauds and overall reporting to date in 2020; however, we have noted peaks and valleys in reporting over the past five years.”