LAKELAND – Since January, roughly 14 people that reside within the Bonnyville, Cold Lake, Elk Point, Lac La Biche and St. Paul RCMP jurisdictions have reportedly fallen victim to deposit scams when attempting to purchase items online.
This is likely only a small fraction of people who have fallen victim to fraud so far this year, says Cpl. Sean Milne, an Alberta RCMP member with the Federal Serious and Organized Crime Unit.
It is estimated that only five per cent of people will ever report being the victim of a scam to police, he says.
That means there is a reasonable likelihood that roughly 280 Lakeland residents have been a victim of a similar fraudulent incident in the last six months alone.
The 14 cases of fraud reported locally only involved e-transfer deposits with victims losing hundreds of dollars, confirms Milne.
“People generally know not to send the whole amount of money for something they haven’t seen, but because deposits are a part of so many legitimate transactions people are more likely to send a portion if it means getting something they want or need,” he says.
Some of the scams reported in the area have involved deposits for purchasing puppies, rental properties, vehicles and even large appliances.
“But so many things are fraud and are challenging to categorize,” he says.
The statistics provided Milne do not include victims of phone call scams where people pose as institutions such as Canadian Revenue Agency, credit card companies and others, or fraud resulting from mail theft or stolen cheques.
This year alone, as of April 30, there have already been 29,294 reports of fraud filed in Canada with $163.9 million scammed out of the pockets and bank accounts of Canadians.
As of May 1, Canadian law enforcement has only been able to recover $991,186 of the amount lost to various scams.
The Canadian Anti-fraud Centre’s website identifies all the scams from A to Z that have been reported to police. The site also includes tips and resources if you have been targeted or victimized by fraudulent activities.
These cases of fraud range from robocalls to human calls, online buy-and-sell scams to catfishing, and even fake websites luring people to purchase illegitimate stocks for products such as Bitcoin.
Scams often connected to organized crime
In a modern and interconnected world, Albertans are not only being swindled by those residing in their communities but are faced with complex scams being perpetrated by international crime bodies, Milne explains.
“The level of sophistication on these is incredible because these are run by essentially international organized crime. They are almost an industry in and of themselves in how developed and refined they are,” he says.
“And because they operate internationally, they quickly get a lot of experience in how to run these things. They get a certain feel for the psychological techniques they need to apply to the people who they actually manage to speak to, to put their narrative forward and convince the person that they need to follow the instructions that are being given.”
While people may feel embarrassed of falling victim to these types of illegitimate transactions, Milne points to the level of resources that are put into these interactions.
“The fact is, in essence, this is a full-time job. So, it is a lot more sophisticated than just say, your typical Kijiji scammer trying to make a quick buck.”
Many online and telephone cons are also operating in jurisdictions and foreign countries that are challenging for RCMP and other international law enforcement to carry out investigations in.
“Going after the actual scammers there's a lot of difficulty involved. It often depends very much on how cooperative the jurisdiction that the scammers are operating out of is as to the success of an international investigation. And so, in some cases, these scammers will deliberately operate in jurisdictions where it is harder for international investigations to occur.”
Because there is so much money at play in these fraudulent outfits, they continue to persist.
“If an investigation does find one call center, for example, that is running these scams and knocks it down, they will rebuild,” Milne says simply. “It's an ongoing thing you can never really put an end to conclusively.”
‘Speed is a scammers tool’
One important element that could help people spot a scam before they’re hooked is the immediacy of the request.
“Speed is a scammer's tool,” says Milne. If you are trying to purchase something online and you are told that other people are interested, you must act right away and send a deposit – that could be a red flag.
“One of the things we always try to push is that fraud relies on people acting before they have time to think... if you're in a situation, stop, slow down, take a breath and think about it,” he emphasizes.
"They want to apply that pressure and make you act without thinking and make you act before checking with somebody.”
Working together to curb fraud
That is why the RCMP continues to push messaging informing Canadians how to spot and avoid the wide range of scams that exist.
“While there is effort that goes towards identifying the suspects and arranging for charges and prosecutions – the other side of the coin – is doing our best to have a domestic educational component to warn the public that these scams are in play and trying to spread the word however we can, through social media, traditional media, encouraging people to watch out for each other.”
The best way for people to learn how to avoid fraud is by hearing stories from friends and family who know how these scams work, says Milne.
“The more people we educate on this and build their resilience to these kinds of scams, that is a really important aspect of how we try to address these things.”
He says, in general, receiving calls from government officials or corporations is just not that common. And on the rare chance that it does occur, “they will have no problem with you taking steps to verify that they are who they say they are before you tell them anything – scammers won’t want you to do that.”
When a person is in a situation where they are not sure what's going on and feel like they may be a target of a scam, Milne recommends people give their nearest police detachment a call.
“If they do fall prey to the scam, the importance of reporting is that although it can often be difficult to solve, we have zero chance of solving a crime if we don't know about it.”
Another benefit of reporting may lead to more cases being solved.
“Often when it comes to fraud, there will be other victims out there. Maybe your incident has a piece of evidence that links to other incidents that we didn't have,” he notes. “The more we can gather up, the more information we have, the better chance we have of getting somewhere with it.”
Hay and feed fraud
One area that has seen a large growth in fraudulent transactions relates to hay and feed scams that have taken place over the last two years. The incidents have increased along with rising market costs.
Milne notes that many agricultural communities have wised up to the tactics used by illegitimate sellers.
Unfortunately, some are still falling victim. And although the numbers are down from last year, there is greater loss due to the larger scale of these purchases.
