Two scams have been brought to the attention of Terrace RCMP, who wants the public to be aware of them and not fall victim to them.
In the first scam, a caller states that he is an employee of BC Hydro and that a preloaded credit card needs to be purchased right away or power will be cut off, said police.
The man requested a phone number to call the caller back to verify.
The caller provided a phone number and the name of “Lewis”.
Terrace RCMP called the number back and it had a voice recording of BC Hydro.
Eventually police were connected with “Lewis” and identified themselves as the police and the reason for the call.
Instead of cooperation, which is what would have been expected if it was legitimately BC Hydro, “Lewis” was quite upset, cursed at the police officer, and stated that they had better not be recording the conversation.
The second scam is commonly referred to as the lottery scam: a phone call or email states that you have won a lottery or prize and to retrieve it, you need to send money first.
A woman provided her credit card information and has lost thousands of dollars.
“You will not fall victim to a scam if do not give any personal information to any business or agency that initiates contact, whether it is phone or email. It is relatively easy for scammers to set up an answering service that appears like a legitimate business or organization. Do a little research. Query the business name; query the telephone number provided to you. There may be information already on the internet alerting to a possible fraud connection,” says Const. Angela Rabut, community policing media relations Terrace RCMP.
Educate yourself on what scams look like.
For more information go to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.