March 25, 2024 Meeting by Victor Fornasier and Tim Sulisz
Cyber Scams and Phishing Schemes Designed to Dupe Seniors
Our Probus meeting on Monday, March 25th featured Constable Marco Ricciardi from Division 22 of the Toronto Police Force, as our speaker. He spoke and gave a PowerPoint presentation on prevention and safety. The focus was on how to deal with cyber scams and how to prevent being scammed, phishing or other initiative design to dupe seniors.
Marco Ricciardi identified a number of different scams that can target seniors including cryptocurrency, dating and romance scams, the grandparent scam, identity theft, spam, lottery scams, pyramid schemes, door-to-door salespeople using high-pressure tactics, and telephone calls, emails or texts claiming that it is from the Canada Revenue Agency.
These are the most common characteristics of phishing scams that you should be aware of.
Hyperlinks – you are asked to select a hyperlink that takes you to a website that gathers personal details about you such as interests and recent online activity.
Text (SMS) – you receive a text message from a scammer that asks for your financial and personal information through text messaging or to click a link that takes you to a website to try to collect your financial and personal information (such as your full name, date of birth, banking/credit card information).
Telephone – you receive a phone call from a scammer enticing you to give them financial and personal information. In many cases, these scammers have a sense of urgency or tell you that you need to act immediately.
Email – you receive an email from a scammer impersonating a known institution or business with a hyperlink or downloadable document that is designed to collect your financial and personal information.
Social media – you receive messages on social media platforms pretending to be customer support asking you to share financial and personal information.
QR codes – you receive a QR code, usually by email, that takes you to a malicious website designed to collect your financial and personal information.
Here are some tips and hints to protect yourself from a potential phishing scam:
Ignore emails from unknown senders and block the sender from sending additional suspicious emails. If you receive a message from an unknown sender, don’t open any attachments or follow any links to third-party websites.
Beware of upfront fees. Look for the secure symbol. Legitimate websites that ask you to enter confidential information are generally encrypted to protect your details. You can identify secure websites by either ‘https:’ rather than ‘http:’ at the start of the internet address or a closed padlock or unbroken key icon at the bottom right corner of your browser window
Avoid sending sensitive information over email and text messages.
Never provide your personal, credit card or online account details if you receive a call claiming to be from your bank or any other organization. Instead, ask for their name and contact number and check with the organization in question before calling back.
To see how Scammers work, the following video shows what one scammer posing as an Amazon representative said to CTV Toronto reporter Pat Foran in an attempt to gather sensitive data such as banking information.
Scams can often be very costly. The video below is about How a Toronto woman lost $340,000 to a cryptocurrency scam. Natalya of Toronto says a story on YouTube prompted her to invest $340,000 into what turned out to be a cryptocurrency scam.
Read More About Frauds and Scams
To learn more about frauds and scams, there are a number of helpful websites. The first one is from Consumer Protection in Ontario. You can read learn about common scams, how to identify them, and what to do if you’ve been a victim of a scam or fraud by clicking on this link: https://www.ontario.ca/page/identify-scam-or-fraud.
The Toronto Police Service also has a webpage that provides information on how to report and most importantly, how to prevent financial crimes entirely. To see their advice, click on the link to their webpage at https://www.tps.ca/fraud/.
More About Marco Ricciardi
Marco is a police constable with 24 years of service at the Toronto Police Service. Marco has diverse experience, including roles in Primary Response, Community Response, Criminal Investigations, Child Exploitation, Traffic Response, Major Crime, G20 Planning, CBRNE, Transit Patrol, Traffic Enforcement, Community Investigative Support, and currently Crime Prevention & Community Relations. Outside of work, he enjoys quality time with his family and has a passion for technology. Marco is also fluent in French and Italian.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 