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A veteran police detective addresses an elderly woman on the front steps of her Collingwood home. He’s holding a cashed cheque for $140,000, money he already knew she had been scammed out of.

“I’m Detective Sergeant Jason Lloyd with the Ontario Provincial Police in Collingwood,” he says, handing her his business card. “Do you recognize this cheque?”

She explains it was her cheque and that she wrote it to pay for renovations to her kitchen and bathroom.

“They even painted the walls,” she tells the detective. “I’m not too happy with the paint, but they painted my walls.”

Lloyd asks if he can come in to get a closer look, but the woman denies his request.

“It’s none of your business,” she says. “I’m happy with the work.”

For the rest of the day, Lloyd and other police officers on his investigative team from the Collingwood OPP crime division worked to convince the woman and her son that they were the victims of fraud. A specific scheme spanning months, maybe years, that would eventually end with them losing their home.

“I showed the son there was a mortgage on the house,” says Lloyd. “He argued there was no mortgage … that it was a fake.”

But it wasn’t fake. It was signed by his mom, even though she didn’t know she was signing it. And it was overdue, even though they received no notice.

***

The mother and son are two of dozens of Collingwood residents and millions of Canadians whose money and/or property has been stolen by scammers.

An increase of successful and attempted scams and frauds has Collingwood police officers speaking out to warn residents to be aware of tactics used by scammers.

Const. Trevor McKean, a police officer for 30 years and currently the community safety officer, says there are several scams becoming more and more prolific in Collingwood, and that no community has escaped their long and winding tentacles.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre reported about $379 million lost in scams and frauds by Canadians in 2021, a 130 per cent increase over the estimated loss in 2020, and the highest annual loss in Canadian history.

In Ontario alone, there were 19,084 reports of fraud in 2021 amounting to about $142 million lost, according to the anti-fraud centre’s annual report. 

The scams range in type and target.

Various versions of romance scams bilked Canadians out of $64.6 million in 2021, all dollars sent in good faith by people who believed they were in long-distance and long-term relationships. People who were tricked into falling in love.

The Canadian anti-fraud centre reported $12.3 million and another $1 million in losses to merchandise and counterfeit merchandise fraud for 2021, and nearly $18 million lost to extortion. People who are victims of extortion are often threatened with criminal charges, jail sentences, fines, death, and direct harm to family members by fraudsters.

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In phishing scams, simply clicking a link in an email can result in a person’s identity being stolen and/or business email systems being compromised and important data being held hostage. In 2021, these types of scams were used to steal nearly $54 million.

There are others, too. The “grandparent scam” typically preys on elderly people as someone calls and impersonates a grandchild. The story usually involves trouble with the police or a medical emergency, and the grandchild asks for money for “bail” or something else. Part of the scam will involve another person impersonating a police officer or other authority figure who will organize a money transfer. Often, a scammer will attend the grandparent’s home to pick up the money. Canadian grandparents have handed over hundreds of millions of dollars in this scam. There were more than a dozen reports of this scam in Collingwood over just a few days.

The Criminal Code of Canada doesn’t require monetary deposits for bail, explains Const. McKean.

Canada has a surety system, which must be done in the court system, and uses a “promise to pay” if an accused person does not attend their court dates. A surety is a person who must supervise the accused person while they are out of custody and awaiting court appearances.

“Typically, bail is going to be a surety, and that person has to attend the court, at least virtually,” says McKean. “The Canadian bail system is very different than the US one … it’s very important to me that people know that.”

***

Detective Sergeant Lloyd remembers when he first realized a local call about a suspicious renovation might be one string on a wicked web of lies, misdirects, and fraud.

“There was a real motivation [in the crime unit] to really sink our teeth into this,” says Lloyd. “This is a lot of work, but definitely worth it for sure.”

 

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