Phone scammers escalating to abusive language and threats
By Kyra Hoggan
The local RCMP detachment is getting flooded with calls from people who have had threating and abusive calls from people claiming to work for the Canada Revenue Agency, according to Castlegar’s Sgt. Laurel Mathew.
The callers start out by telling their targets that there was a problem with their tax return, so they need to provide personal and banking information to allow the government to deposit their refund.
Should the target refuse to provide that information, the callers get verbally abusive, using foul language, and telling the target that they’re breaking the law by not complying and that the police are on their way to arrest them. In at least one instance, they also threatened to seize their target’s bank accounts.
“We’ve had five calls about it today alone,” Mathew said in an interview Wednesday. “They (the callers) are being very vicious and verbally abusive.
“There’s not really a lot we can do about it, because the phone numbers and routed and rerouted from all over the world – There’s no way of telling where the calls are coming from,” she said. “If you receive a call like this, you can contact the RCMP’s antifraudcentre.ca .
“The big thing to remember is to never give out that kind of information over the phone. The CRA would never ask you to, and we’re certainly not coming to arrest you.”
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