Winnipeg Police are warning of a recent scam targeting local phone numbers where fraudsters pose of police officers.
A scammer will call a victim purporting to be a Winnipeg Police officer with a fictitious badge number. Victims will then be told that their financial card has been compromised and often that someone is in custody concerning the fraud.
If using a landline phone, the victim is asked to call 911 or another number (such as a credit card company) to corroborate the claim. However, the scammer will not hang up – resulting in the victim believing they have made a new call, but the scammer is still connected and acts as if they are a different person or transfers the victim to another fraudster.
Then the victim may be instructed not to contact their financial institutions under the guise that the alleged fraud is an inside job. The scammer will then ask the victim to withdraw money, send a form of cryptocurrency or forward gift cards.
Police warn citizens that they will never call and demand or request money under any circumstances – this includes payment by Interac e-transfer, bitcoin, prepaid credit cards, or gift cards from retailers such as Apple, Amazon, or others.
Here are some other tips to avoid these scams:
– Never give out personal information.
– Most landline phones either have a call clearing delay time or require the person who initiates a call on a landline to end the call for the other person to be able to dial out again. Therefore, if you receive a suspicious call on your landline phone, hang up and wait 30 seconds before using the landline again, or use a mobile phone.
Please visit Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre for more information: www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca.
This article was originally sourced by o.canada.com.
