STOP CRA Pretenders/Scammers, STOP being a next victim of 77,000 Canadians who lost $99 million last year

Stop being the next victim of 77,000 Canadians who lost $99 million last year in extortion, phishing and romance scams.

You have probably heard on the Web, Radio or TV, that an increasing number of fraudulent calls to Canadian Taxpayers with threats and aggressive and forceful language to scare them into paying a fictitious debt to the CRA.

The scammer usually requests immediate payment by credit card or will convince the victim to purchase a prepaid credit card or Bitcoin and demand that they call the scammer back immediately with the information. The taxpayer is often threatened with court charges, jail or even deportation

The scammer makes the fraudulent call, a convincing one, by giving out the CRA Agent’s fictitious Badge number, and toll-free number to call, where the scammer’s co-scammers readily answer the returning calls.

For more sophisticated scammers, they will utilize the hacked emails, whether through the individuals’ hacked computers or email forwarding host service providers. Once they have access to hacked emails, they will search for key words within the hacked emails’ contents, once they identify individuals with references to tax owing, the scammer will make the fraudulent calls more convincingly.

Even more threatening is their utilization of technology where the fraudulent calls’ fictitious Call Displayed as from CRA or the victims’ accounting firm or tax preparer.

To help protect yourself from this scam, CRA and RCMP encourage you to consider these tips:

-If you receive any such phone calls, HANG up, then

-You call CRA directly, to confirm the status of your  tax accounts before taking any action that may be the result of pressure from suspicious calls or emails, and to verify the legitimacy of the communication by contacting the CRA directly at 1-800-959-8281 for personal Tax; and 1-800-959-5525 for business HST and corporate tax.

-If you have engaged an accountant or tax preparer for your personal tax, contact them directly and have them verify the status of your tax account.

-The CRA will never request prepaid credit cards or Bitcoin, or iTunes gift cards, and it will not send emails containing details of a tax refund or Interac e-transfer payments;

-The CRA will never ask for information about your passport, health services card or driver’s licence;

-The CRA will never leave personal information on your voice mail service;

-If you’ve shared personal information, contact Equifax and Trans Union to place fraud alerts on your account;

-If you’ve shared banking information with a scammer, contact your financial institution to place alerts on your accounts;

This purpose of this newsletter is to inform our clients, friends and families, of any tax, accounting, business-related matters that are important for their personal or business.

If you have any questions, please contact Thomas Tang, LPA, CPA, CGA, B.Comm., CITP

thomas@tang.ca or 416-987-6005 x 210

For more information on tax, Accounting, Audit and Business Advisory Services,

please visit www.tang.ca