Charlottetown Police Services are reminding you to be aware of the various scams that have surfaced in our area.
There’s the Lawsuit Scam, in which a caller tells the potential victim they are being sued and are required to call a long distance number to deal with the matter. The victim is subsequently tricked into providing sensitive information.
Police also warn of the Bank Investigator Scam. With thios, a call claims to be a bank investigator, working with the RCMP investigating a large internal bank fraud. The caller explains that part of this investigation requires the victim to send funds via Western Union to an address and that their money would be returned. In this scam, the caller also may trick the victim into providing remote access to their computer.
With the Revenue Canada Scam, a caller requests payment for outstanding taxes, asking for information such as credit card, bank account, and passport numbers.
And with the Craigslist Rental Scam, the fraudster copies a legitimate ad from another classified website such as Kijiji and posts the fraudulent ad on a different site such as Craigslist. The victim who responds to the fraudulent ad is then communicating with the fraudster instead of the legitimate ad poster.