Fraud prevention in action: Recognize, Reject, and Report

Fraud: Recognize, Reject, and Report It.

With the cost of living crisis, fraud is unfortunately on the rise. If it’s not telephone scams, then it’s phishing emails, or even romantic Romeos swindling your hard earned money. March is anti-fraud prevention month and we met with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre to dive deeper into fraud prevention.

First, what is the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC)?

The CAFC is Canada's central repository for data, intelligence and resource material as it relates to fraud. The CAFC commits to providing timely, accurate and useful information to assist citizens, businesses, law enforcement and governments in Canada and around the world. The CAFC's primary goals are prevention through education and awareness, disruption of criminal activities, dissemination of intelligence, support to law enforcement and strengthening partnerships between the private and public sectors with the aim of maintaining Canada's strong economic integrity.

Fraud prevention is the number 1 method to minimize the risk of fraud for Canadians

Many fraud schemes today are designed to play on a potential victim’s emotions and get them to respond without thinking. They try to illicit responses based on panic, fear, curiosity, excitement, desperation, elation, or love, which are often escalated by presenting urgent situations requiring immediate action. This slogan for fraud prevention is geared toward getting citizens in Canada to slow down and not react to potential fraud solicitations. We encourage people to recognize that fraudsters are using every means at their disposal to target them; telephone, email, text messaging, social media, internet and mail. We ask that they change how they react to the unsolicited offers or demands.

Rejecting fraud involves protecting your personal information and money. Routine practices to develop include checking credit profiles, monitoring accounts for unauthorized activities, updating operating systems and antivirus software, and not doing business over the phone. We want people to slow down, to think about and assess the situation before reacting. This can involve saying no, doing due diligence, researching, confirming information, and talking to family members and friends. We want to encourage people to take their time and to scrutinize all offers and demands.

Reporting fraud means speaking up, even when no money was lost. Like other crimes, if fraud is not reported, we don’t know what is happening and can’t warn other people. The information from one fraud occurrence (a bank account, email address, virtual currency address, telephone number, etc.) can be investigated and is useful in linking other occurrences. Moreover, reporting provides other opportunities for disruption. By reporting the information to the banks, money service businesses, email providers, telephone companies, dating websites, social media networks; steps can be taking to block or remove these fraudulent accounts and their content.

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Reporting fraud means speaking up, even when no money was lost.

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CAFC reports on the most common fraud schemes targeting Canadians

We’re making significant investments that are deeply integrating security at every layer within our products. We’re working at record speed to make product security a competitive advantage. In the past 6 weeks, we’ve launched new features that authenticate identity in more complex and robust ways, deployed monitoring tools powered by advanced AI and even built sophisticated tools that can warn individuals ahead of an attack.

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What steps can consumers take to reduce fraud on their own? 

Below are a few questions to ask yourself every time you are contacted for personal information. If any of the following apply, do not provide your information. Seek advice from trusted resources.

• Is the call unsolicited? Was it expected or out of the blue?
• Are they asking you to confirm personal information such as your name, address, or account details?
• Are they looking for a fast or instant response?
• Are they asking you for money?
• Is the caller avoiding using the actual name or the company or financial institution?
• Are they offering you a prize, free gift, refund or trial?
• Are they claiming to be the police or investigating something?
• Does the email have an odd email address?
• Is the formatting strange?
• Are there spelling mistakes?
• Are you being asked to change your password despite not sending a request to do so?

Today Financial is tackling fraud

Today is committed to leverage CAFC’s best practices to minimize and prevent fraud on our platform. To date, we’ve made significant investments in improving security infrastructure across our products. You can read more about those initiatives from our Chief Technology Officer, Chad Arthur, here. 

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Digital e-commerce fraud is on the rise and we encourage all our customers to be aware of the threat. After all with fraud, we have to recognize it, reject it and then report it. Our fraud hotline fraud@paidtoday.io is available to help with any suspicious or fraudulent activity in your accounts. For more information, visit www.paidtoday.io/cardholder-security 

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To access our webinar we hosted to dive deeper into our security initiatives, please visit here. If you want to join our movement for money innovation, connect with us on Linkedin here.

Today Financial is powered by XTM Inc. To learn more visit here.

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Relevant Today Magazine articles:

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