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Police warn of scammers impersonating the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre · Kvetch & Release

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  Officials are warning the public to beware as scammers are impersonating the Canadian Anti Fraud
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  Center. The Canadian Anti Fraud Center itself, the opp and the RCMP have
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  put out a statement saying fraudsters are claiming to help the Canadian Anti Fraud Center
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  with an ongoing investigation. They're using their letterhead, they're using their logo,
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  they're spoofing police phone numbers. In some cases. This is just egregious the
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  lengths that people go to both commit fraud and to scam people out of their
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  hard earned money. Joining me to discuss right now is our Member of Parliament
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  for Windsor West, Brian Massey, who has been working on this file for
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  quite some time. Brian, how you doing good? Thanks thanks for having
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  me. I appreciate this because it's another attempt that goes really far in terms
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  of its diabolical approach and it just confuses people. And I think people know
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  all fraud was up lately as well. Yeah, it's you know, this
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  is it. It's really cheeky of them to go out of their way to
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  impersonate the Canadian Anti Fraud Center, really really escalating things. It is,
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  but you know, I've been trying to work on this for a long time
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  to get it taken more seriously. In Ottawa, I was able to get
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  the first report ever and study at industry committee. Kevin Cosgrow came up.
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  He's a local guy. Our Windsor police are excellent on this file, by
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  the way, compared to other police departments. It's a matter of resources really,
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  but I'm really trying to get across to people, including government people and
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  others, this is organized crime. And we did get a victory about seven
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  or eight seven or eight years ago when we actually had the RCMP work internationally
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  with some fraud centers going on in India. It was the first time that
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  we were able to get outside of their country and investigation. With the results,
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  and we still need to do more. It should be part of even
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  what I've argued our international treaties of trade and so forth. This is very
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  sophisticated organized crime and people, just so you know, they unders understand if
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  you're a victim of this, don't feel bad. These people are very sophisticated.
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  They use behavior techniques and they have a lot of resources, and you
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  shouldn't feel bad. If you're a victim of fraud, you should report it
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  to the Windsor Police and also the Anti Fraud Center. But at the same
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  time, you should not feel bad about yourself and shame about this because it
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  can cause mental health problems on top of the financial loss. And it's important
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  for people to know these predators are very serious, sophisticated, and they get
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  the best of the best. Well. People are victims here that needs to
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  be remembered if you do fall prey to this. But is that something that
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  you hear often in your office when people call in talking about this? Do
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  people feel embarrassed about it in our own community? They do, and it
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  stops the prevention of reporting this. And again that's important because we need to
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  build the case for this. All the people that have been working on this.
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  It does matter when people call in, and I know you just feel
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  like a statistic and things may not get better right away, but we need
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  to build the case that this is certainly something that needs to be dealt with
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  more seriously than ever before. And this latest barrage has been really bad and
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  I'm still working to try to get even the telcoast to have to be responsible
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  for some of the telephone numbers and access to service that they're getting from fraud.
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  We actually have had some movement from the CRTC to actually put some responsibility.
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  It's called the Shaken program where you know, you get identified if a
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  call coming and you may it SA as likely spam or likely fraud. And
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  still it's not as sophistic as it should be, and it's been more voluntary
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  from the telcoast. I think they need to be responsible for some of the
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  economic consequences of this, are funding some of the processes to fight this,
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  because you know, it's sad because people are paying for your phone, you're
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  paying for your number, you're paying for the data and everything else, and
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  what are you done. You've been attacked by basically organized crime and that's just
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  not right. It's interesting that you talk about, you know, what the
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  responsibility maybe should be for the telcos that we have. It seems like it
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  would be a pretty easy thing to do to just take the suspected numbers.
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  You're probably easy enough to analyze the data that they have and go, oh,
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  look, this one phone just sent out ten thousand text messages or whatever
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  it might be across the country, all within the same time. That looks
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  like fraud. It seems like it would be well within you know, it
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  would be great for all of us to have something like that implemented for sure,
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  And it's just not taken seriously enough right now, and it's just seen
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  as a responsibility for law enforcement and for people to protect themselves. And we
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  need to go to the frontline on this. We can't be responding all the
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  time to fraud because this is what you know they predicate on is a model
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  where still shift. I mean, before this situation, there was a lot
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  of fraud going on with COVID, and the access to people's data and privacy
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  is very important. So I just encourage people, you know, if it
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  sounds too good, it's probably too good. Never just react to something that
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  somebody calls in on you or texts in you, and that you can always
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  ask for number to call back and double check that number with your financial institution
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  or anything else. Don't give out your credit card to anybody that contacts you
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  right away, you know, make sure you don't give out any private information.
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  All those things you can first of all, first line of defense is
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  ask for a number to call back, and then before you call that number
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  back, check to make sure it's the viable number from that institution, and
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  if not, then your agency or whatever you're going to do is going to
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  mail you. And you can ask for stuff to be mailed to you as
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  well too instead, and that's where most communications should be taking place for sensitive
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  information. So those are first lines of defense. And again, don't feel
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  ashamed and bad about if you've been a victim of crime. I know people
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  in our own community that I've lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it's
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  sad because it's affected their family and their lives for years to come, and
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  getting that money back is almost next to impossible. That's awful stuff. I
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  hate that people would be predators and on some of our most vulnerable people who
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  can be susceptible to this. It's really gross, and I really appreciate that
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  it's something that you keep your eye on and you keep talking about that committee,
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  Thank you for having me on. I'm breaking this away to the public
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  because it's something that we've got to continue to push and hopefully this latest round
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  will give more impetus for my committee to actually return to this issue, which
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  I'm trying to do in the fall. So we just keep pushing this forward
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  and making sure and if you want to go on for Fraud League Prevention techniques
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  ww dot Brianmassey dot CA actually has a whole thing on fraud prevention right there
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  on the front. We have a special link just for fraud prevention there and
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  there's also the Competition Bureau and into our Fraud Center where you can just check
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  out that stuff to help protect you and your family. Important information for people
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  to know. Thank you for your time, Brian, really appreciate it.
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  Thank you for having me. Thank you. Brian Massey is our Member of
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  Parliament for Windsor West. Police are warning of scammers impersonating the Canadian Anti Fraud Center