Hub Staff

A reader notified Saugeen Shores Hub recently of having received messages claiming to be from Revenue Canada or Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and claiming there is a balance owing to the agency.

The video below was sent to us and demonstrates the type of messages people have been receiving. In some cases the messages claim arrest warrants if payment is not received or, as is the case in this video, the caller claims a criminal case concerning “tax deficiency” and “tax fraud”.

We have received several reports of similar scams from the Saugeen Shores Police in recent months. Among them: You will know if you owe CRA money: Police and Scam alert: Saugeen Shores Police

We showed the video to Chief Dan Rivett, Saugeen Shores Police. “It doesn’t happen. That is a fraud. Canada Revenue Agency doesn't act like that.”

Rivett said that if you are concerned you may owe the CRA money, “don’t phone the number that they give you, look it up in the phone book, look it up on the internet and find a number to call them,” adding that if you owe money on your taxes you are going to know.

“CRA doesn't do phone calls like that. Some people will phone back and challenge them and those people will lose it right away,” said Rivett. “The best advice is delete the message, delete your email, hang up the phone. You don't have to listen to them and they'll go away.”

He continued. “These people are so convincing and as soon as you start telling somebody they're being audited or you're going to go to jail, that scare factor comes in and these people can convince people. As long as people are making money off of this they'll continue to do it. People need to realize you know whether you have any issues with CRA and if you don't [know] call your accountant if you use one or call CRA and call the police,” said Rivett. “Call us.”

Rivett added that he doesn’t recommend responding to the number given. “All that does is say that that number is a live number, same with an email. As soon as you respond they turn around and sell your email as a live email to somebody else and you get more.”

He added that scammers now also have the ability to mask phone numbers and make it look like it’s a local call coming in. “If they do my home number they could mask it to look like it’s coming from mine,” said Rivett, adding that they can mask email addresses as well.

“It’s so frustrating because you see some people get taken and they’re paying a lot of money,” said Rivett. “The answer is delete it, shred it, hang up.”