Edmonton police warning residents about various scams

EDMONTON — Edmonton police are using March to spread the word about the increasing prevalence of fraud.

Police will spend the month educating Edmontonians about ways to avoid being a victim of a growing list of fraud like E-transfer scams, computer virus scams, phishing, tax and immigration scams, romance scams and door-to-door service scams.

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“Fraud awareness is the key to prevention,” Staff Sgt. Sid Kingma said.

“The first line of defense is knowledge. These people who are conning seniors and immigrants, and anyone else who believes them, are very difficult to catch. But what we can do is try and shut off the money tap using education as a tool.”

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Canadians lost over $74 million in 2014 through mass marketing fraud, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center. That is an increase of $14 million from the previous year.

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Canadians between 60 and 69 years old are reportedly most often targeted.

“As more and more people become victims of fraud, it is essential that the financial community, police and our community partners, work together to better educate the public to recognise these frauds from the outset to protect them from financial loss,” said Jeremy Nicholls, Servus Credit Union senior manager.