Surrey residents misplaced over $12 million in 2023 on account of fraud involving cryptocurrency, police say.
Police in Surrey issued a information launch Thursday (March. 7) warning the general public about the most typical scams occurring in Surrey and the best way to keep away from them.
In 2023, the Surrey RCMP acquired 229 studies of fraud that concerned cryptocurrency. “The bulk of frauds had been associated to funding scams,” reads the Surrey RCMP launch.
Within the first two months of 2024, police in Surrey acquired 50 studies of fraud involving cryptocurrency and Surrey residents shedding $3.2 million.
“In these scams, victims had been launched to cryptocurrency-related investments through social media, cellphone calls, on-line ads, and on-line courting platforms,” police say.
“Utilizing spoofed web sites and cellular functions with pretend trades and earnings, the victims are inspired to speculate cash on the investing platform. When the sufferer makes an attempt to withdraw their investments, they’re sometimes requested for extra money for taxes and different charges.”
“Finally, the scammer stops speaking with the sufferer, and the sufferer realizes they’ve been defrauded of all the cash they believed they had been investing.”
Police included an inventory of different scams of observe:
• Job Scams: Police in Surrey have seen a rise in the quantity of job scams cryptocurrency in 2024. “The job scams contain the scammers impersonating reliable corporations and asking the applicant for cost of provides or to start coaching. These pretend jobs are sometimes for reviewing merchandise, web sites or crypto buying and selling and can request funds to be despatched in cryptocurrency with guarantees to ship a reimbursement to the sufferer,” reads the discharge.
• Grandparent Rip-off: Scammers name seniors and declare to be a member of the family and demand bail cash for a member of the family.
• Rental Rip-off: The scammer will ask for private info and an e-transfer with out assembly in individual. As soon as the cash is acquired, communication with the potential renter normally ends, police say.
• Financial institution Rip-off: “The fraudster impersonates a financial institution worker to ask you to help in an investigation or advises there was criminality along with your checking account. Typically the scammer will request cash to be despatched through crypto or present playing cards. Don’t ship any cash and attend your native financial institution department.”
• Cellphone Rip-off: “Cellphone calls and texts are acquired from spoofed cellphone numbers with somebody pretending to be from a cellphone firm and providing offers on iPhones. The fraudsters use these scams to collect private and monetary info to commit fraud and identification theft.”
• Pretend Financial institution Drafts: “Patrons of autos and luxurious gadgets, equivalent to watches and designer purses are offering financial institution drafts as cost. A current surge in studies of fraudulent drafts has been reported the place these financial institution drafts seem genuine and are of such prime quality, they’re typically unnoticed by banks as being counterfeit. For these sorts of funds, it is suggested to attend the issuing financial institution with the purchaser to have the ability to affirm the validity of the financial institution”
Police say when you’ve got given any private info like your passport, SIN, or driver’s licence, contact Equifax and TransUnion, “the 2 foremost credit score bureaus in Canada to stop potential fraud.”
One approach to defend your self from scams is to find out about the latest scams. To see an inventory of present scams or to report fraud, go to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre online.