While March is fraud prevention month everyone knows scams perpetrated on innocent victims can happen anytime of the year, with fraudsters targeting vulnerable seniors, who have money saved for retirement which they need to protect in every way possible.
The Canadian Assocation of Retired Persons (CARP) put on a fraud webinar during March Fraud Prevention Month. However, whether it is on the cold days of winter or hot days of summer, taking the time to view this excellent presentation with well-informed presenters is highly recommended. Bill VanGorder, the Chief Advocacy and Education Officer for CARP, moderated this webinar and aptly stated thorough and sage advice was being provided to those fortunate enough to take this one in.
Here is your opportunity to do the same with a link provided to this Nova Scotia CARP Chapter seminar entitled: Avoiding Frauds & Scams. Just click here https://youtu.be/7GlJyPcBCDY
The first presenter Dianna Burns of the Legal Information Society of Nova Scotia focuses exclusively on fraud in relation to Powers of Attorney (POA) and ways to think creatively in preventing fraud in this undertaking. While some of her presentation is specific to Nova Scotia legislation she says the criminal code in Canada applies across the country so much of her comments are still relevant to those not living in Nova Scotia. You should always check with your lawyer as to what is applicable in the jurisdiction you reside in.
The second presenter is David Harrison of the Nova Scotia Securities Commission. His topic is investment fraud. He grabs your attention right away with a slide showing how investment fraud in Canada has increased from over $120 million in 2021 to more than double at $245 million in 2022 and to rise even higher in 2023 to $309 million. As Mr. Harrison states, the actual amount of loss is far greater since the vast majority of frauds are never reported.
One visual slide he shows next is particularly apropos to seniors. It shows a safe with some storehouse of wealth in it as a representation of a senior’s nest egg and another graphic of a wallet with little money in it because the senior is concerned they have not saved enough for retirement. Either depiction, he explains seniors are often targets of these fraudsters for these two main reasons. The latter one has more to do with being vulnerable to a pitch to earn more money in what is presented as cannot miss investments.
He does an excellent job of breaking down common frauds and describing them. They are Ponzi scheme, affinity fraud, boiler room, pump and dump, binary options, ICO & cryptocurrency scams and recovery room scams.
Finally, more than 30-year veteran RCMP officer Andrew Joyce shared all his wisdom and years of experience dealing with fraud from his policing perspective. He made a strong referral and recommendation to go to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre since it has a wealth of timely information on preventing fraud and lots of statistics.
A real highlight was how he broke down recognizing or detecting fraud to five essential telltale red flags to watch out for. Mr. Joyce opined that these ones he covered off are common in 99.9% of all scams. They include unsolicited, unknown contact (e.g., text, email, phone call), receiving a threat (i.e., police or government institutions do not threaten you to open up your wallet), urgency factor, payment, and the unavailable red flag (e.g., rental units or romance scams).
For the fourth red flag referred to as payment, it is worth citing from Mr. Joyce given how strongly and definitive he felt about this one.
“No matter how grand the story is, and the stories are grand because these fraudsters are very, very good at what they do. They’re world class! You feel like you may be dealing with one person but often the person on the other end is a whole team of persons, people that specialize at various ends of the fraud. So, anytime that you receive a message, and they are asking you to send a gift card, or cryptocurrency or wire transfer money, you are being scammed. Without a doubt, you are being scammed. “
Mr. Joyce was so emphatic about the red flag cited above, he restated it and said, “If you don’t know anything else, know that, and that will save you from a lot of the frauds that are happening out there.”
As Sergeant Phil Esterhaus (Michael Conrad) said at the end of his morning roll call in the award-winning police drama TV series Hill Street Blues, ‘Let’s be careful out there’. This applies to all of us when it comes to avoiding frauds and scams, at home or wherever we may be.
