A couple of scams to be aware of

New scam to me: Received a call this morning from "Visa" asking if I authorized a purchase at 4 am this morning to eBay. Of course, I immediately asked which card and the person on the other end said the one starting with "45" which is the standard visa starting numbers. I then asked what the last four digits were on the card, and the person hung up.

 

In a lot of ways, I was having some fun because the last name they asked for isn't the last name on my credit cards and I would have thought the bank would be calling, not VISA. They were probably hoping that I would say no I didn't authorize the transaction, and then I would give them my credit card number so that they could "reverse" the transaction. If a company is calling me and telling them there is a problem, they already have all the information that they need other than me saying yes or no if I authorized the transaction. Scams are getting very interesting, and you have to always be so careful when you get these calls. Never give out any information to callers if they should have the information and in a lot of ways even if you think it might be a real call say you will call back with the information and call the real company, not the number the caller provides.

Revenue Canada scam: You receive a text message showing that your refund is ready, and you just need to click on a link to download your refund. Well, Revenue Canada doesn’t send text messages with your refund attached. Revenue Canada doesn’t call you to tell you that the police are on the way to your home to arrest you because you did something wrong. These are just a couple of the Revenue Canada scams that I have seen happening in the last little while.

Service Canada scam: there is another scam where you get a text from Service Canada letting you know that to deposit the funds you need to go to this link. Why would the link have gomdesign.com as part of the link if it was really from Service Canada?

There are so many scams going on now that you have to be so careful to protect yourself. I know that there are going to be individuals that give out credit card or personal information over the phone, but my biggest caution is only given the information to someone if you have made the call yourself, and you know that you have checked the number you are calling and not calling a number someone provided you when they called you.