If you get a text announcing an “important message from Service Canada,” it’s a scam. Here’s what to do if you aren’t sure.
In recent days, multiple NWT residents have reported receiving messages claiming to be from Service Canada regarding “a problem with your recent tax assessment.”
The scam is clever. The message lists a real CRA phone number to make it appear legitimate.
But the text itself isn’t really from a CRA or Service Canada number, and what the message actually wants you to do is respond with a message of your own so the scammer can try to take your money.
“To start resolving the discrepancy, please respond to this message with ‘Y.’ This will allow us to investigate and fix the problem quickly,” the message states.
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If you respond with a Y, you’ll be talking to a scammer, not to Service Canada or the CRA, and they may start asking for personal information that could ultimately let them access your cash.
In other words: don’t respond with a Y. The safest thing to do is ignore the message completely.
Some people who did initially send a ‘Y’ response report being sent a link to a website, cppnotifications.com, that is designed to look like a federal government website but is a fake.
The scam is really sophisticated. If you enter your social insurance number and details on this fake website, it’ll take you to the banking website of your choice to log in there as well – and those are also fake! Meaning that the scammers can harvest all your personal information and your banking login, all in one go.
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You can tell the sites are fake because of their URLs – none of them are what they should be – and because none of the other links on each page work, just the submit buttons to send data to the scammers.
If you ever aren’t sure if a message is real, call Service Canada or the CRA at the numbers listed on their websites. (Never trust the numbers given in the message itself.)
Check the Service Canada and CRA scam and fraud pages for more information.
