The increase in government programs, more people doing their day to day business over the phone and internet, and greater financial stress, has made Canadians more susceptible to scams.
To avoid scams, it is important to understand how and when the government will contact you.
What The Government Will Never Do
- Contact you by text
- Ask for personal information via email
- Contact you about money owed without first sending a letter
- Request payment by prepaid credit card
- Require payment be made by money order
- Ask for credit card information
- Leave personal information on an answering machine
- Give information to someone who isn’t the taxpayer unless they have proper authorization
How The Government Will Contact You
The federal government uses regular mail to contact taxpayers. If you have signed up for online communications, you will receive communications through your Service Canada or Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) account.
The government has never communicated with taxpayers via text.
While the CRA does contact taxpayers by phone, there are ways to verify the call is real before you provide any important information.
How To Verify A Phone Call Is Real
Employees of the Canadian Government will have an employee number.
Take down the agent ID, their department/agency and the call back number. You can even ask for a brief description of why they are calling. Let the person on the other end of the phone know that you will call back to verify the legitimacy. A real government agent will be okay with this.
Do not rely on the call display as scammers can now manipulate this to read as if the government is calling.
And don’t call back the number they provided. If they are scammers, they could have given you a fake number that will link back to them. Instead call the appropriate department based on the information they provided …
1-800-959-8281 for individual income tax help
1-833-966-8501 for assistance with the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB)
1-800-277-9914 for Canada Pension Plan (CPP) or Old Age Security (OAS)
1-833-966-2099 for Employment Insurance
Once you have reached out to the appropriate agency, you can confirm the badge number and phone number and ask to speak to the representative.
If you are certain the call was fraudulent, call the Canada Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501.
Types Of Scams
There are two major types of scams that fraudsters will attempt.
The first will include a phone call, text or email that says you have money owed to you. To accept the money, you’ll have to click a link that directs to a site that looks a lot like the government page. You will have to provide financial information to receive the amount. This will give the scammers access to your accounts.
If it is a phone call, the process will be similar, but you will be asked to give the information over the phone.
In the second scam, someone will reach out and say that you owe back money for benefits or refunds you shouldn’t have received. They will tell you that the amount needs to be paid back immediately. They will threaten to seize assets, cancel your passport or other identification, deport you or imprison you.
The payment will be requested by wire transfer or prepaid credit card.
If you receive this call, report it and reach out to the Canada Anti-Fraud Centre.
The government of Canada will never contact you by phone to let you know you owe money unless you have been told via mail first.
Furthermore, the government will never require payment by prepaid credit card or wire transfer. Any payments that must be made to the government are done through a secure government website, your bank or by cheque.
And lastly, the government of Canada will not cancel government IDs for failure to pay back money owed.
Other types of scams do exist so don’t assume that these are the only two. They are just the most common.
The important takeaway is that you should never provide personal or financial information or make a payment without first reaching out to the department on your own to verify the legitimacy of the request.
