East Ottawa Star
Published: Friday, February 27, 2009 Watch for scammers Last year around this time I wrote about the never-ending stream of dinner hour interruptions from fundraisers at the door in frigid temperatures to telemarketers calling during your salad, main course and dessert … yikes. Thankfully this activity has subsided but it has been replaced by non-stop e-mails and the new telemarketing technique of choice, the scams that continue to reach your cell phone or blackberry, almost once a day. In conversations with my neighbours, I’m not alone in this regard. To start, I never knew I had so many bank accounts. Apparently my accounts with TD, Scotiabank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Washington Mutual, Caisse Populaire and Citigroup have been breached and each institution has worked diligently with my best interests at heart to e-mail me and let me know suspicious transactions have occurred and my accounts have been suspended. However, if I only provide my SIN number, mailing address and other personal financial information all can be rectified shortly through the convenient web link provided. Forgive me but I’m having a Jason Bourne moment, now wondering who I really am, where I can find my other passports and wondering if my Swiss bank account number is tattooed to the inside of my mouth. I sure could use the money in all those accounts I supposedly have. Open up and say ah. As for cell phone calls, the warranties on my vehicles – all 16 of them – are due to expire shortly, but if I just hand over 16 digits from my credit card and the expiry date I can extend my warranties basically forever for mere pennies a day. But the most disingenuous calls are coming from 800 or 866 numbers with a friendly guy named Larry or woman named Sarah from the Canada Revenue Agency inquiring about some person you have never heard of and this mythical person left your work or home number as the contact. If you call back, which I did out of curiosity, Larry will take a moment, ask when he called you, make some typing sounds and say, “Thanks Mr. Robinson for getting back to me. We’re trying to track down so-and-so who left your number as a contact as this person owes us back taxes.” When I said I had never heard of this person, Larry noted that this happens a lot with tax cheats and if I could provide my SIN number to verify then all would be cleared up and he would track so-and-so through other means. Ah Larry, I think not. In our increasingly digital and wired world, these scams are ripping of many trusting folks and resulting in alarming amounts of identity theft that ruins the reputations and credit ratings of honest, hardworking people. So here’s the rule, never trust emails from alleged financial institutions, calls from warranty or service resellers and check legitimate websites of the banks, the taxman and RCMPs www.phonebusters.com if you are at all in doubt. = = = = = Comments can be sent to Walter Robinson at orleansouttakes@transcontinental.ca. |