By Lara Fominoff @LaraFominoff on Twitter

CRA and STARS Lottery phone scams making the rounds again, say police

Jan 16, 2018 | 1:56 PM

TABER – Just a few days after the STARS Lottery launched in southern Alberta and the phone scammers are at it again, say Taber Police.

Executive Officer Mathieu Champagne says they’ve had numerous complaints about a caller informing someone they’ve won something in the STARS Lottery, but they first need to e-transfer or wire money to receive the item.

“At no time would anybody ever ask for money to accept a prize,” said Champagne.

His office has spoken with STARS, who has also confirmed the calls are fraudulent. The callers don’t target any specific demographic, but instead randomly pick numbers hoping they’ve come upon someone who may have a ticket.

“Everything is done through [STARS’s] website. They post all winners on their website; all the draw dates are on their website.”

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Champagne adds that they’re also now getting more calls about the Canada Revenue Agency telephone scam. In those instances, he says someone will call, claiming the CRA is owed back taxes, or there has been some misrepresentation on your tax return.

“They’re being told they need to pay an amount on warrants that don’t actually exist. They will ask that these individuals buy pre-paid Visa cards or Apple iTunes cards, and send them the registration information in order to clear up the warrants.”

“Even if these people make 100 phones calls and two people send them $100 or $1,000 dollars, if you’re a group making a thousand phone calls a day, you’re going to make a lot of money overall,” he says.

Champagne’s advice for anyone who gets the calls would be to report it to local police, with details of what transpired. He also asks people to use their common sense and never to give out personal or banking information to someone they don’t know.

The Canadian anti-fraud centre website is another valuable resource for information, and can be found here: http://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/index-eng.htm.

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