With March being Fraud Prevention Month, the South Bruce OPP is asking residents to watch out for cons and scams after more than $72,000 has been sent to scammers, year-to-date, by residents of South Bruce County.
Cons and scams are attempted daily through online, phone mail and fax. 24 fraud reports have been received by South Bruce OPP.
7 of them have resulted in total losses of $72,900.
All of the “successful” ones were for the purchase of goods arranged online.
Police provide a list of common trucks the con artist use to steal your money and tips to help protect you. They are available at our website.
- Spoofing. Appears to be contact from a friend, legitimate company or even a branch of the government, but it’s not. To avoid the scam; end the call and connect with the real person, company, branch of the government. If it’s an email, hover over replay and see what email address shows up.
- Urgency. “Act now”, “limited time offer”, “click now”. The scammer doesn’t want you to consider the offer as suspicious. To avoid the scam; time is on your side. Verify the contact BEFORE you go any further.
- Emotional manipulation. Con artists will play on your emotions to get your money. Romance scam, emergency scam, grandparent scam, charity scam. To avoid the scam; be suspicious when they play on your emotions. Check out the Anti-Fraud Centre’s A-Z index of scams, maybe this is a listed scam.
- Pop-ups. Boxes that appear on your computer or device screen. “You’ve won a prize”, “your device is infected”, etc. A toll-free number is provided for you to call. To avoid the scam; install anti-virus, pop-up blockers, clear your cache, block cookies – when possible. Don’t use public Wi-Fi – particularly for online banking. Never call the number in a pop-up.
The South Bruce OPP is offering you some tips to help protect you from a con artist:
- If it sounds too good to be true, it likely is.
- Remember that you can’t win a contest that you didn’t enter in the first place.
- If you have a concern about your computer, take it to a reputable repair shop for service. Do not provide remote access to a “tech” that calls you out of the blue
- Gift cards are a red flag. If someone contacts you and directs you to buy gift cards, you need to hang up the phone.
- Your best defence is to verify any unsolicited contact. Unsolicited means that you didn’t ask for it.
