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Call from Canada Border Agency scam- “shipped illegal items”
Received a call earlier this morning, when I picked up it had a recorded voice message claiming to be from the Canadian Border Agency. It mentioned that there was an illegal item shipped to my address and that there has been an arrest warrant issued for me.
Very scary to hear and can easily trick vulnerable people into this scam. Of course, it is another type of those famous CRA scam that claims that you owe money to the government and asks you to pay through a gift card. Although, in this case, I would imagine they would ask you to pay a fine or something through gift cards.
How did I know it was a scam?
1) Government officials won’t ever contact you by phone without a proper contact initiation through mail/in-person.
2) There was no mention of my name or any personal identification information.
3) The government won’t ask you to pay by gift card or anything like that.
Also most of the time, you will get these random phone numbers calling you and when you pick up the line usually hangs up; before they initiate this scam call. They do this to check if the phone number is working and if your voice mail has your full name on it, then they can use that to gather more information to trick you. Imagine you get the same call but this time it says your name! Yeah, more people would fall for it without even realizing that their voicemail intro has their name on it.
More information here: https://www.canada.ca/en/border-services-agency/news/2021/10/beware-of-scams-using-false-cbsa-credentials.html
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