Income tax deadline fuels scam calls
Posted April 25, 2018 11:10 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – With the income tax deadline just a few days away, scam calls claiming to be the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) have phones ringing across the country.
Scam calls traditionally rise as the deadline approaches, according to Evan Kelly with the Better Business Bureau, and they have remained on the bureau’s top ten scam list for years.
“A lot of these calls are robo-calls and they sound like someone is talking very struggling English.” Kelly said. “The concern now is that we’re seeing a lot of these scams, and other types of scams, where the crook is asking for payments in Bitcoin.”
He reminds people the CRA does not make threatening phone calls, nor does it ask for personal information over text or email, and no government agency in Canada accepts cryptocurrencies.
“I ask them to repeat everything in French. That’s my go to, because chances are they can’t.” Kelly said.
The bureau estimated tax scams cost Canadians $5 million in 2017.
Income taxes must be filed by April 30.
