Scam alerts: Police warn of a springtime surfeit of swindlers

The passe coin below your car trick, demands for payment in bitcoin, a plea to assist the RCMP … it looks swindlers are taking pictures up love springtime crocuses.

When it involves scammers, data is energy. In one day, the Ottawa Police Provider and the Ontario Provincial Police warned of three latest flimflams.

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“Ma’am! You’ve dropped some change!”

This “distraction theft” stamp a woman in Carleton Place her purse, according to the Lanark OPP.

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Police say the woman was in the parking lot of a grocery anecdote on Feb. 20 when she was approached by two females who said one of them had dropped money that had rolled below the victim’s car. When the victim zigzag all the way down to search, a male accomplice of the females opened the passenger-facet door and swiped the woman’s purse.

A bystander saw what happened, nonetheless by that time the trio of thieves had jumped into a grey SUV, perchance a Honda CRV, and driven away north on McNeely Avenue. Safety video confirmed the three thieves had been travelling collectively before the theft.

Police say the woman who created the distraction appeared to be in her 40s and had shoulder-length dark hair. The man is described greatest as being in his 40s. An image of the two females was released by police, although they blurred the 2nd female’s face because they maintain she is a minor.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Lanark OPP at 1-888-310-1122. If you want to remain anonymous, call Lanark County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477. You can also leave anonymous ideas online at ontariocrimestoppers.ca.

The Cyber Crime scam

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A woman in Hawkesbury obtained a pop-up message on her computer warning that her computer had been infected by a virus and urging her to call Apple for tech toughen. When she did, the scammer, posing a tech-toughen worker, suggested her to download software that allowed him to remotely access her computer.

He then told her that her computer had been linked to a miniature one pornography and money-laundering ring and transferred the call to a fake RCMP cyber-crime investigator. Her suspicions aroused, the woman began asking pointed questions and realized she was being grifted.

She reported the incident to the OPP, who gave her advice on the way to stable her financial accounts “and mitigate any financial losses,” the OPP said in a release.

Fake service calls love this one accounted for $22 million in losses in Canada in 2023, police said. Their advice is to be suspicious of any unsolicited telephone calls or pop ads about computer safety or viruses. Don’t call a company number without double-checking that the number is legitimate, and by no means allow a stranger to access your computer remotely. If you enact have a computer discipline, take it to a reputable repair company, and by no means provide financial or personal information over the telephone except you’re the one who initiated the call.

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For more information or if you really feel you’ve been victimized, contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 or online on the Fraud Reporting Machine (FRS), even though a financial loss did no longer happen.

“Pay me fast — and pay me in crypto!”

Ottawa police say a number of area agencies and accommodations have been targeted by a unique scam. It works likes this: The scammer, usually a man, calls the trade claiming to be the manager and tells the worker that there is an urgent bill that may aloof be paid. He tells the worker to scoop money from the cash register or the office and to deposit it in a crypto foreign money ATM or with Western Union.

Often, the scammer is aware of worker names or details about the trade and its insurance policies.

“No executive agency or legitimate trade will ask you to purchase gift cards or bitcoin in explain to resolve an account,” police say. 

That scam is basically the same way the City of Ottawa was bilked out of $128,000 in 2018. A Florida man who spoofed the email of a senior metropolis executive was able to convince the metropolis treasurer to transfer money to a fictitious U.S. firm. In 2022, the man was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in penal advanced. In court docket data he was described as a “money mule” for an organized crime ring based in China.

If you have been a victim of fraud, police say, memoir it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre or memoir online to Ottawa police. 

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