March is Fraud Prevention Month and OPP offers Tips to Avoiding Scammers

With March being Fraud Prevention Month, the OPP is taking part in a national initiative to raise the awareness about cons and scams that are taking so much money from people and to help promote fraud prevention.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says over 67,000 victims lost $380 million dollars to fraud last year.

Online investment fraud was$153 million of that. This increased 394% over the $33 million lost 2 years ago.

The OPP offer some tips on spotting and preventing scammers:

• Tack-savvy scammers use technology to create very convincing schemes designed to trick you into sending them money
• Con artists will typically use the name of an established company or government agency to gain your trust, so that you will send money or give personal information to them
• Your best defence is to verify any unsolicited contact. Unsolicited means that you didn’t ask for it.
• Don’t respond to phone numbers or web links provided by con artists. Look up contact information for the actual business, branch of government to verify who you are dealing with
• The OPP ask you to Recognize, Reject, and Report Fraud