The phone scam artists who have been posing as tough-talking Canada Revenue agents are still at it. Sometimes they pose as cops too. But the game is the same. They try to bully and threaten people into going to the bank and withdrawing large sums of money. The duped citizens are then told to go to a Western Union or Moneygram agent and send the cash off to an individual not the CRA. The fraudsters want the victim to take a cell phone with them on this journey so they can give instructions at every step of the way. The suspects are usually aggressive and will bully the victim into thinking there are immediate repercussions to not paying the owed money immediately They threaten the victim with arrest, even having a person pretending to be a Toronto police officer threatening arrest over the phone Police say that the CRA does contact individuals but there are specific guidelines in place to ensure that personal information is protected. The CRA website lists the following guidelines: The CRA never requests prepaid credit cards, never asks for information about passport, health card, or driver’s licence, never shares taxpayer information with another person, unless you have provided the appropriate authorization and never leaves personal information in voicemail or asks to leave a message containing personal information on an answering machine
