There has been a new scam occurring in Saskatchewan and the RCMP's F Division Economic Crime Program would like to inform the public and advise them on how to better protect themselves from falling victim to this new scam.
In this scam, the victim's email account is compromised. The perpetrators then use the information located within the various folders in the email account to compose an email to the victim's financial institution asking them to wire money from their account to another bank account. There have been incidents where the email has been acted upon by the financial institution and money has been sent to the perpetrator's bank account.
The best way to protect yourself from this scam is to protect your email account. You can do this by:
Creating strong passwords and changing your email password every six months.?
Be careful in clicking on links attached to emails you receive. If you don't know who sent the email don't click on the link.?
Make sure your anti-virus software is up to date. ?
Be cautious when logging into your email account from untrustworthy computers. This is any computer that you don't maintain yourself. These computers could have keylogger technology installed on them which would give up your password to your email account.?
Be cautious of what personal and financial information you include in an email.
Fraud awareness is part of a national crime prevention campaign to increase Canadians' awareness of and knowledge about different types of fraud in order to help citizens to not become fraud victims. RCMP Saskatchewan's F Division Economic Crime Program has offices in Regina and Saskatoon. Their role is to reduce the impact of economic crime on Canadians by maintaining the integrity of our economy through public education, crime prevention, and enforcement.
To better educate yourself with this scam and others, please visit www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/scams or www.antifraudcentre.ca.
