Fraud

[mbarrick]

Yesterday someone called my home number claiming to be from the Canada Revenue Agency. I called the number back today and got this person with an American accent. She asked for my social insurance number off the bat, which I didn't give her. She asked instead for my last name and put me on hold while she got my file. Once she "had my file" I challenged her to validate she was from Canada Revenue by telling me my social insurance number. She rattled off an entirely incorrect number. She agressively claimed I owed a little over $2000 on my 2003 personal taxes. Hardly. The 2003 tax year was in fact one of only two in my life where I had only one job and no self-employment income. I got a refund that went directly into my student loan. Conversely, I've owed the Canada Revenue money before when I was self-employed as a sole proprietor and know what their collections are really like. They are very accommodating in verifying who they are and you never call a collection agent directly, not to mention letters are sent in advance. She couldn't even tell me my own home phone number that she called me on yesterday. She became contentious and said why would she care what I owed if she wasn't at work and that if I didn't give her my correct social insurance number how could she "clear my file". I refused again and she gave up on me and hung up.

Pretty clearly she was fishing for my social insurance number for the sake of identity theft and presumably if I had been dumb enough to agree to pay what I "owed" a valid credit card and expiry.

Never give you social insurance number to anyone over the phone

BTW, I've been on hold with the RCMP fraud line while writing this.

Comments

[mediavictim.livejournal.com]

I got my first "VISA INFORMATION LOST please click here to update your information" email the other day.

I am really starting to think we need to procecute fraud artists like
violent criminals - have real-world pain and bodily harm equate to what they do to people.

More than a few tiems I have fanticised about kicking in the door of a 14 year old computer virus writer or cyber-fruad artist and taking a fire axe to his computer and a loisville slugger to his knees

[nicosian.livejournal.com]

i got one of those a couple weeks ago. forwarded it to VISA so they could deal with it.

sad thing is, people fall for this stuff.

[sciencequeen.livejournal.com]

Whoa weird. I've never actually had to deal with that, but that's good you knew the steps to make her dig her own hole.

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

rev can never calls you by phone unless you are in serious arrears and have ignored several letters...they always send notices and the notice or letter gives you the number to call...they totally can verify your home number as it's on your tax return and they have access to that information...was the number a 1-800 number??? because most collections agents have a direct line...their general number is 1-800...though now some minor collections are done out of call centres...but if you had owed $2000 since last year they would have contacted you long ago...good to know you are more savvy than most, wonder how often that one has worked...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

If it had worked as planned she would have ended up with my S.I.N., a valid credit card number, and two thousand-odd dollars.

It was an 866 toll-free number, which I gave to the police. That was actually my first clue that something was fishy (or in this case phishy) — Revenue Canada has had toll-free numbers forever and all their main contact numbers are 800 numbers, not 888's, 877's or 866's.

When I dealt with their collections in the past they were happy to validate themselves by directing me to call back through the main, well-known 800 number that I could easily validate on their website and in the blue pages (and encouraged me to do so), and then route back to the agent's local.

[seymour-glass.livejournal.com]

yeh all government numbers in vancouver are 666, or 775...and any toll-free we use are 1-800 no matter what department...pretty clever though, some people would have no idea that it was a scam...they get more and more clever with their schemes...i'm betting it evolved out of an irs scheme in the states...everyone fears the tax department!!! and you are right they are always willing to verify their identity...i wish they would call me as i worked for rev can and could tell them they were full of shit...

[valerian.livejournal.com]

Figures. It seemed fishy to me when it wasn't a 666 number, and what at first looked to me like a regular number and not a toll free (a prefix I hand't even heard of yet). I figured it was just some tax preparation agency spamming us to have them do our taxes. But HAH!! Busted.