The Golden Age of Scams

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so this pandemic has been a golden age
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for scams unfortunately according to the
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federal trade commission in the u.s
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reported fraud is up 83 this year 83
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from phishing emails to ponzi schemes
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scams are also becoming more
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sophisticated and frankly harder to
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detect legal expert tanya walker has
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noticed a sharp increase in her own
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practice as well so she is joining us
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this morning with tips on what to look
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out for nice to see you this morning
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nice to see you too thank you for having
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me so what have you been noticing in
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your practice
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what i’ve been noticing in my 15 years
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of practice is a huge increase in the
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amount of fraud type cases where people
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are scam getting scammed and it’s very
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difficult to collect their money an
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example is that a client of mine the
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defendant owes her
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three almost three hundred thousand
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dollars uh defied every single court
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order uh pretty much that was made
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against him including not to funnel
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money through any bank accounts um
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a few days after that order was made he
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funneled almost 264 thousand dollars
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into a bank account the court um wasn’t
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happy with that and so they ordered uh
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him to be held in contempt and
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imprisoned the unfortunate thing is now
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that we can participate in court uh by
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zoom um he’s not even in the country so
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i we don’t even know where he is
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oh that’s so upsetting for that person
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so why do you think during the pandemic
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we’ve seen such an uptick in scams
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happening
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well there are four reasons one is
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social media we’re at home a little bit
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more so we’re looking around um trying
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to invest a little bit more the second
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is that we are it’s very easy to look
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legitimate uh the third is it’s easy to
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move money in and out of the country for
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example if someone moves money out of
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canada and buys property in france
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and you win a case against them here you
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have to get your decision vetted there
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by the time you do that the money’s gone
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somewhere else and also i think the last
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reason is investment rates are quite low
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so people are interested in
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investing privately as opposed with a
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financial institution
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what other types of scams are becoming
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more popular now
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well including the ponzi scheme like i
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mentioned i do believe it’s a ponzi
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scheme phishing scams um scams for the
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intention of getting personal
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information out of people
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uh romance scams um you may be catfished
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and requested to send money fake online
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stores where they’re designed to steal
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your credit card information and make
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purchases across the country okay so i
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want to go to the last one like fake
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online stores how are you supposed to
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know
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what should you do to check things out
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beforehand
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well if it’s a store you might want to
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try and call the store you can check
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with the better business bureau there’s
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just different ways you can go about
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verifying if that store is actually
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authentic also check the url um some
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urls are just not really legitimate so
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it’s important to do a little bit of
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research just to make sure the store is
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actually the store you’re buying from
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so somebody asked you for money in
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general what what should you do what’s
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your advice
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no don’t do it
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well if you don’t give out any personal
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information by email or telephone
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and verify the legitimacy through
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research for example sometimes if a
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corporation calls me i might say i’m not
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really comfortable giving up my
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information on the telephone can i hang
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up and call you back just give me your
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extension and then i’ll do a little bit
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of research online to make sure the
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number they provided to me is the number
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of the actual company
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you might want to register your
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telephone number on the national do not
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call registry um that’s a that’s an
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initiative by the federal government and
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that it tells telemarketers don’t call
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me and so if you register yourself on
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there and a telemarketer calls you or an
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investor calls you you can probably say
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that it’s not the most legitimate um
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investment because the fine is a penalty
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of almost fifteen thousand dollars
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and also just keep in mind that if a
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return on investment seems too good to
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be true it probably is right so those
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are some things you might want to keep
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in mind oh good tips uh and when do
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people come see you like when is the
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lawyer involved
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people come see me when they sometimes
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when they say you know what i’m thinking
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about investment can you look into this
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and let me know if it’s legitimate let
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me know if the company’s legitimate so
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we can do some kind of searches and and
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ascertain the information sometimes with
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investments you’re actually supposed to
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get approval by the government the
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canadian securities uh commission and um
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i would be able to tell you that also
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people come to me sometimes when the
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money’s gone and they say tanya can you
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help me recover my funds and then i have
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to start litigation and get a charge
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hopefully to say give this person their
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money back or at least put in some
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mechanisms so that person can collapse
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tanya walker always good to talk to you
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thanks for joining us today
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thank you for having me