Beware of scammers
City police say false kidnapping claim was made
Local police enforcement wants to make the public aware of two recent scamming incidents, including that of a false kidnapping claim. The scams, which hit a parent and daughter at the same time, included callers saying they needed $5,000 to release the woman’s daughter, while the daughter was on the phone with someone claiming to be from the CRA.
Summerside Police Services wants to make the public aware of two recent scamming incidents in the city, one of which involved a false kidnapping claim.
The timing and circumstances of the two incidents are unusual, but police can’t say for sure if they are connected.
“These scams are so common now that it’s not outside the realm of possibility that it’s just a coincidence,” said Cpl. Jason Blacquiere.
Police said that just before 6 p.m. Tuesday evening, they got a report from a citizen who had just received a text message from the cellphone number belonging to their adult daughter. The message said that the daughter was being held against her will and that she needed $5,000. No other information was provided. The complainant used some kind of app or program to find the GPS co-ordinates of their daughter’s phone, which showed it was in a Summerside parking lot, and called police.
Officers found the woman sitting in a parked car talking on her cellphone. She told police she was on the line with someone claiming to be from the Canada Revenue Agency and that they were telling her she owed the government money. The person on the line was demanding that she immediately go to a bitcoin machine and pay off her debt using the cryptocurrency. Both the purported kidnapping and the CRA demand for bitcoins were scams.
The CRA does not collect funds with demands for immediate money transfers and does not deal in bitcoins. Police suspect the scammers used technology to mask their text as being from a number the victim would recognize. No money was lost by the victims in these two incidents. Blacquiere said scams involving the CRA and fake kidnappings have both been around for a long time, but this was an unusual situation.
“The scams are very common, but the circumstances were very uncommon,” he said.
More information about how to protect against fraud can be found online at the CRA’s website: https://www.canada.ca/ en/revenue-agency/corporate/security/protect-yourselfagainst-fraud.html.