Recent experiment exposed Canadians as overconfident when it comes to thwarting fraudsters, expert says advisors must be alert to dangers
It may have escaped your calendar amid RRSP season deadlines but March is officially Fraud Prevention Month – and Canadians are not the sharpest at spotting a scam.
Interac’s recent #SafeNotSorry experiment yielded some worrying results and suggested advisors have work to do to help clients to stave off attempts from fraudsters to get hold of personal information.
While 71% of Canadians say they feel confident in their ability to detect a phishing scam, 96% were unable to identify the safest option when put to the test.
It also revealed that Canadians could not identify the level of risk in scenarios involving suspicious requests to accept money transfers (84%), verify personal banking credentials (63%) and click on phishing links (82%).
Surprisingly, Gen Z adults are the least confident in their abilities to spot a phishing scam (65%) despite the fact they are likely to spend three hours a day online. Meanwhile, two-fifths of millennials (44%) think they are more likely to be stung by a swarm of bees that lose their savings to a financial scam, while nearly half of baby boomers think the answer to perceived phishing scam is to simply close the internet browser or delete the text.
Rachel Jolicoeur, director, fraud prevention and partnerships, told WP that fraudsters have got more sophisticated at passing off fake emails as real, using trusted institutions like CRA and banks as a ruse to con investors.
She said: “Some of the top scams out there are emails that are pretending to come from financial institutions and with an urgency call to identify themselves because their account has been blocked or there is something happening that’s suspicious on their account.
“It says something like, ‘contact us immediately and give us your information so that we can authenticate and make sure these transactions are not fraudulent’. No one wants to lose money so they do call! It’s normal for a bank, for example, to authenticate you but a bank will never ask for a social insurance number or your online password. However, some people fall into that trap.”
Jolicoeur said the communication between an advisor and his or her client is vital in combating scammers. If a client sees something out of the ordinary, then they should give their advisor a call straight away.
She added: “Contact your advisor if you click on something and think you’ve given information – don’t just close your browser and hope that nothing follows.
“Trust your intuition. If your advisor is reaching out and that is not expected or part of the conversation or is out of the ordinary, call your advisor and find out whether it’s legitimate or not.”
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