Tax-themed Scams are Targeting Residents of Niagara

Stcatharinesstandard.ca reported on 20th August, 2015 stating that the Niagara Regional Police (NRP) Ontario, Canada is reiterating its warning to residents to be careful of tax scams.

Stcatharinesstandard.ca reported on 20th August, 2015 quoting Sgt. Paul Spiridi as saying "NRP continues to receive several complaints from residents who have been targeted by many common tax scams."

Victims have been targeted with hoax phone calls and scam emails from individuals claiming to work for the Canada Revenue Agency. The impostor asks for personal information like social insurance numbers and banking information to either deposit refunds or make payments towards due tax.

In some cases, victims are informed about outstanding balance which, if not paid immediately, will result in arrest, deportation or seizure of vehicles, homes, bank accounts and other assets.

Criminals demand payment via the purchase of pre-paid credit cards or e-mail transfer.

Spridi said that these kind of communication are meant to produce a sense of urgency and stress.

Spriti added: "We put out some information around tax time but it is still going with full force as there are many reports coming in from public through calls at our front desk and we have had reports of some significant losses also."

In order to make their claims more authentic, the scammers frequently apparently use logo of official tax department, copyright notices and secondary links which lead to the legitimate website of the tax department. Internet users should be very careful about any emails that claim to be from their country's tax department (like CRA in the above case) and ask them to submit personal information by clicking on a link or opening an attachment. Genuine taxation organization (like CRA of Canada in the above case) will never inform taxpayers about a possible refund and will never ask them to submit personal information through an unsolicited email.

However, this is not the only case of tax-themed scam email which has been reported from Canada as during second half of July 2015, police in Kelowna (British Columbia) received many complaints of different 'phishing' scams claiming to be from Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).

» SPAMfighter News - 9/1/2015