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fraud

Fraudsters have come a long way since the days of the Nigerian prince scam. According to a new poll by RBC, Canadians report being targeted by all kinds of scams in the last two years — everything from standard phishing and inheritance scams all the way to COVID-19-related scams.

46% of Quebecers polled reported that they've been targeted by more scams since the pandemic began. This is right in line with the national average: 48%. More than half of Quebecers (54%) have trouble identifying scams in their email, texts, and online. This isn't surprising, considering that 42% of Quebecers have seen an uptick in scams in which fraudsters impersonate reputable brands.

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The Service de police de la Ville de Montreal's economic crimes unit arrested a Montreal couple suspected of manufacturing and selling false training certificates for patient attendants, according to a notice on the police website.

The couple, who police say are the owners of a vocational training and placement centre in the Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension borough, appeared at the Montreal courthouse today.

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As COVID-19 vaccination ramps up in Quebec, watch out for scams. According to the provincial government and Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC), fraudsters are calling people up to offer vaccines for a fee — and nothing about it is legit.  

The CAFC told MTL Blog that between September 2020 — prior to the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Canada — and January 2021, it received reports of fraud calls offering "vaccine kits," "vaccine sign-up links" and scam-artists posing as the World Health Organization.

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Yesterday, some of our staff at MTLBlog noticed a rather disturbing Facebook status from a user named Peter Manirath.

Apparently, Peter thinks it's funny to take advantage of restaurant staff. Peter bragged about how he went into Petinos in Laval, and pretended that he was a food blogger who worked for us in order to get special VIP treatment.

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Montrealers are rejoicing this morning after finding out that you can buy a device which will allow you to reload your opus cards from home. It's no wonder people are happy, reloading a card can be a nightmare. No more running to the nearest station in a panic and no more waiting in seemingly endless lines. Sounds pretty good right? Or does it? Well as it turns out, you have voiced your concerns and it's worth exploring the value of this new "convenience".

Bigger companies are at risk, so why not the STM? When Starbucks rolled out their app that let's you check out with your phone, it was quickly hacked by criminals. And they didn't just steal users' Starbucks money, they used the app to infiltrate users' PayPal and drained their entire bank accounts.

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Photo cred - Jason Tester Guerrilla Futures

Canadian banks have come under threat by Russian and Ukrainian fraud artists according to MSN. Kaspersky, a popular anti-virus software company, reported that malicious software was being used to steal money from various financial institutions and so far the losses add up to nearly $1 billion USD.

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