How to avoid the ‘Bank Investor’ scam that has cost Canadians

Article content

Thursday, July 28 marked the day I became yet another Canadian statistic.

Article content

It was also the day I learned (the hard way) about a fraud scheme called the Bank Investigator. In this scenario, scammers pretend to be calling from banks or financial institutions, warning you of a fictional scam and fraudulent purchases made on your account.

Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre’s figures showed there were 2,212 reports and 734 victims of this type of fraud in 2021, which led to almost $4.6 million in losses for Canadians.

So far this year, 1,547 Canadians reported the fraud, with 381 victims and $2.2 million in losses from Jan. 1 to July 27, 2022.

“There has not necessarily been an uptick in victims or dollar loss from 2021 to 2022 (year-to-date), but a small uptick in reporting so far in 2022,” Jeff Horncastle, the acting client and communications outreach officer from the CAFC told me.

Article content

After targeting 1,939 individuals since 2019, the Bank Investigator has resulted in approximately…