Dear Clients,
You probably already know of the problems posed by various fraud artists posing as CRA collection officers. You may have already received one of their “robocalls”, or an email message, threatening immediate legal action in aggressive, harassing tones.
Most people blithely ignore such calls or emails, and safely do so. However, some of our clients have been lured or bullied into providing their bank information to such callers. In such cases the bank will usually *not* re-imburse for funds swindled from you in this manner.
In the past, such losses were rare, largely because the calls and emails were usually crude and fairly transparent. However, the scammers are becoming more sophisticated. Below is a excerpt from an email recently received by one of your clients.
You will see that its pretty impressive:
- It appears to be form as trusted source (Interac)
- The link reached by clicking on “Deposit Money” (in this case it was “safelinks.protection.outlook.com”) -sounds reasonably respectable.
- It is offering to transfer money to you, which sounds attractive and might tempt some people to betray their better judgment.
- The graphics are impressive and look much the same as real emails you might have received from (the real) Interac in the past.
Here are 2 simple rules to follow whenever you are contacted by anyone claiming to represent the CRA:
- Ask for their agent ID number and a phone number where they can be contacted.
- Tell them to contact your authorized representative (that’s us). If they are a real CRA officer, they will already have our contact information and will readily agree to call us. If they aren’t, they will probably hang up and try someone else.
No real CRA official will ask you to provide any confidential information without first identifying exactly who they are.
All the best,
Larry Tomlin MBA; FCPA, FCMA; CIM; C.Dir
Tomlin Financial Group — What Accounting Should Be