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A province-wide crackdown on scam artists who prey on older adults continued on Thursday, as the Sûreté du Québec’s fraud squad oversaw nearly two dozen raids in Longueuil and Toronto, Montreal, Sherbrooke, Brossard, Laval, St-Canut, St-Lin-Laurentides, Joliette, Terrebonne and Ste-Thérèse.
More than 250 police and civilian personnel are part of an operation targeting 28 suspects believed to have bilked their victims by using the “false bank rep” scam.
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The scam sees a fraudster call an older victim and claim to be a representative of the person’s bank or other financial institution. The victim is then told a potential fraud was detected on their account and they need to turn over their bank cards as well as their personal information numbers (PIN) for the fraud to be stopped.
The fraudster then sends an accomplice to the person’s home to collect the cards. The bank cards are used to empty the victim’s bank account or the credit cards used to make purchases.
Thursday’s raids come a day after five people were arrested in LaSalle and Laval for the same type of fraud.
The SQ reminds the public to never divulge personal information over the telephone and, if they have concerns over a call apparently coming from their bank, to hang up and call their financial institution itself to verify whether the call is genuine.
Anyone with any information on this or any other fraud is urged to call the SQ’s criminal information line at 1-800-659-4264.
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