Watch out for internet scams: Nunavut RCMP

When you are looking at emails, be careful not to respond to unsolicited emails, with ads such as this one, that ask for your personal information.

Watch out for internet, email, and telephone scams.

That’s the current advice from the Nunavut RCMP.

In a recent release, the Nunavut RCMP said police have received a number of complaints of victims of fraud through emails, telephone and internet scams over the past few months.

Some of cases involved the following:

• email accounts getting hacked through easy security questions and answers and subsequent emails getting sent to family and friends requesting money, so ensure you change your password regularly and pick questions and answers most people would not know or can guess easily;

• emails where small and large amounts of funds are promised from other places in the world, so ensure you do not click on these links, because chances are that these emails are not legitimate and are scams and do not provide any personal or banking information unless you know the person personally and you know it is legitimate;

• emails claiming to be from the Canadian Revenue Agency—if in doubt, contact the CRA through telephone or internet through another source other than the email or link you received; and,

• paying for items on local sell-swap pages and not getting the items you paid for—when paying for items, if possible, buy from people you know or if you know someone you can send the money to who could pick the item up in person.

For information on scams or to report deceptive telemarketing, you can contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center online here or call toll-free at 1-888-495-8501.

If you believe you may be a victim of fraud or have given personal information or financial information unwittingly, you can also contact your local RCMP detachment.