The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has released some staggering statistics about mail-forwarding fraud: complaints were seven times higher in 2016 than 2015.
The centre received 479 complaints in 2016, a rise from 63 the previous year and officials say that’s only a fraction of what’s really going on.
The scam involves a con artist impersonating someone and re-routing that person’s mail through Canada Post to either a residence, a business address or to a location that is abandoned, vacant or up for sale.
The centre says all the scammer needs to make a mail-forwarding request is the victim’s name, main phone number and address–all of which can easily be found on line.
The centre says the unsuspecting victim normally doesn’t realize he has been scammed until he receives a slip in the mail saying the address has been changed and warns Canadians to be more vigilant in checking their mailboxes to make sure everything that is supposed to show up shows up.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is a federal agency that collects information and criminal intelligence on various types of fraud, including identity theft.
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