If it weren’t for a vigilant store clerk, an elderly Nanaimo man might have lost more than the $1,500 he was bilked out of by a variation of the Canada Revenue Agency scam.
According to RCMP, call-takers were inundated with 145 complaints of attempted telephone fraud from Monday morning to Tuesday afternoon. One 81-year-old Nanaimo man fell victim to one of those attempts and lost $1,500 when two people, who claimed to be government representatives over the phone, demanded payment for a phoney tax debt.
The victim complied with their request to attend a store and buy iTunes gift cards and provided the activation numbers to the scam artists who went on to demanded an additional $3,500 in iTunes cards and told the victim if he went to a police station he would be arrested. Fortunately a store clerk questioned the transaction and called police.
Read more at Nanaimo Bulletin
