An international student attending a post-secondary institution in Kelowna was threatened earlier this month with deportation during a scam phone call, and was taken for thousands of dollars in the process.
RCMP said the caller told the woman she would be deported if she did not pay $3,500 via bitcoin.
“The victim, unfamiliar with Canadian laws, completed the transaction without informing friends or family out of fear they would deport her,” RCMP said in a press release.
“Government agency employees will never ask for a payment to be made using cryptocurrency. If a payment is required, government employees do not use threats or extreme urgency like the tactics used by scammers in these types of frauds.”
If the person won’t let you off the phone or makes any types of threats if the call were to end, this is fraud and should be reported to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and your local police, said the RCMP. Regardless if money is given to the scammers or not, police are asking for the call to be reported. The Anti-Fraud Centre keeps an updated database of the various types of frauds affecting Canadians.
Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) does not collect money or payments by phone or prepaid credit cards or through a private money transfer service provider (e.g. Pay Pal or MoneyGram).