Police are warning people to be vigilant after a scam involving false tax collectors cost an Ottawa woman more than $12,000.
Michelle Jaksic is out thousands of dollars after receiving a voice message earlier this week from what she thought was a Canada Revenue Agency representative, telling her she owed money.
She said the caller told her that the RCMP would arrest her and that she would go to jail for 90 days if she didn’t pay up.
“So I’m panicking,” Jaksic said.
The Ottawa woman returned the phone call, and a voice on the other line offered a solution that would help her avoid arrest.
“And then he said, ‘It sounds like I’m a responsible person, and they don’t normally do this, but there’s another way we can resolve this.’”
As per the caller’s instructions, Jaksic went to various stores, purchasing multiple $100 gift cards. Jaksic said she then read each gift card's security code to the caller over the phone.
“It was $12,500 and it took from about 2:30 to about 9 o’clock,” she told CTV Ottawa.
Jaksic said she woke up early Wednesday morning with a gut feeling that she had been scammed.
Staff Sgt. Stephanie Burns, of Ottawa Police’s Organized Fraud Unit, says once a gift card is activated, “it’s as good as cash, so what they’ll do is, they’ll get the security card number on the back of the card, and it’s wiped almost immediately.”
Jaksic’s case is extreme, but far from isolated. Ottawa police say they have investigated hundreds of similar cases in recent months, and had to implement a separate fraud hotline to take all the calls related to that one particular scam. Elsewhere in Canada, police have received thousands of calls about similar scams.
John Walsh of Brampton, Ont. was on a similar path, purchasing gifts cards for what he believed to be the CRA, when a store manager stepped in and called the police.
“When the police came and assured me and told me to hang up the phone, I broke down,” Walsh told CTV News. “I broke down inside Shoppers Drug Mart and cried like a baby.”
Burns said when potential victims receive the call for this particular scam, the voice on the other line sounds “a lot like a robot,” and says that “you need to call back, there’s an issue.”
“It’s a very vague, kind of a threatening message,” Burns said.
Jaksic says she contacted iTunes representatives, who told her there is nothing they can do, and MasterCard also told her the money is gone.
“They said I was responsible for the payments,” Jaksic said.
Burns said the scammers are probably targeting people who can’t afford to be spending “this kind of money,” but are “trying to do the right thing” because they believe that there is a problem with their taxes. According to Burns, the gift cards are being used in China.
“They want to get that sorted and they end up getting duped,” Burns said. “It’s heartbreaking, it really is heartbreaking.”
Police say citizens should always be skeptical of people who claim to be from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Their advice is to ask questions, and ask for a callback number and official website to verify the information. The CRA even has a video warning Canadians about what police are calling a growing problem that is costing Canadians millions.
With a report by CTV Ottawa's Patricia Boal