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Con artists impersonating Canada Revenue Agency: RCMP

Caller often uses aggressive and forceful language to force a potential victim into paying a fictitious debt.
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Sooke RCMP

Sooke RCMP have been inundated with complaints from residents regarding calls and emails professing to be from the Canada Revenue Agency.

Complainants are receiving phone calls, messages or emails in which a person is claiming to be a CRA representative who threatens charges and jail time over a non-existent debt.

The caller often uses aggressive and forceful language to force a potential victim into paying a fictitious debt.

The CRA will never ask for sensitive personal information over phone or email, such as passport, care card or driver’s licence and they would never ask for payment in the form of wired money or prepaid credit cards and they don’t threaten to arrest people who have outstanding debt, said Cpl. Joe Holmes, Sooke RCMP spokesman.

Potential victims can garner more information and listen to an example of a telephone scam on the CRA’s website at cra-arc.gc.ca.

“Crimes like this are difficult to investigate as they almost always originate from outside Canada,” Holmes said.

Anyone who receives a fraudulent call is asked to hang up immediately and report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (Phonebusters) at 1-888-495-8501. Its website, which has some valuable information on common frauds, is at antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca.