Frauds surged across Canada in 2020 amid pandemic

Following the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) was quick to warn Canadians to be on the lookout for thieves who might steal money or sensitive information by exploiting people’s desperation and fear. Now, nearly a year later, those concerns have been unfortunately validated

According to new statistics from the CAFC, the top 10 types of fraud targeting Canadians, based on the number of reports last year, accounted for more than 56,000 reported incidents of fraud. In contrast, the cumulative number of reports received for the equivalent top 10 list in 2019 totalled just over 36,000.

Documented dollar losses from the most-reported frauds also increased, with a reported $92.4 million in victim losses from 2020’s top 10 list compared to $81.2 million lost from the 2019 list.

Top 10 types of fraud by reports (2020)

Top 10 types of fraud by reports (2019)

“Scams soliciting personal information and phishing do not involve financial losses and the majority of people who are victims of identity fraud are not responsible for the fraud losses,” the CAFC said.

Between 2019 and 2020, reports of phishing scams decreased (from 5,053 to 3,672), as did personal information scams (from 7,642 to 6,649). However, the number of reports for other types of scams increased, including extortion (from 10,278 to 17,390), merchandise fraud (from 2,452 to 3,354), and job fraud (1,702 to 2,297).

Incidents of identity fraud also spiked massively, from not even making the 2019 top 10 list to taking second place in 2020 with 16,970 reports.

Ranking fraud types by dollar losses showed a similar trend. The top 10 frauds by dollar losses in 2020 accounted for just over 31,000 reports, compared to the 2019 top 10 list where total reports amounted to just over 23,000.

From a dollar-loss perspective, victims of the top 20 for 2020 lost $92.4 million, compared to $81.2 million for the victims in 2019.

Top 10 types of fraud by dollar losses (2020)

Top 10 types of fraud by dollar losses (2019)

Spear phishing lost its place at the top of the list as total losses fell last year even as the number of cases rose. Romance scams, meanwhile, emerged as the new top scam in terms of losses (from $18.3 million in 2019 to $18.5 million in 2020), despite a fall in the reported number of incidents. Losses reported from investment scams also swelled from $10.7 million in 2019 to $16.5 million in 2020.

Unfortunately, the numbers likely underrepresent the scale of fraud that affected Canadians last year. “It is estimated that fewer than 5% of victims file a fraud report with the CAFC,” the centre said.

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