A Canada Revenue Agency scam has claimed at least one victim in Williams Lake, city councillor Surinderpal Rathor warns.
Rathor told the Tribune Wednesday a close relative recently lost $3,200 to the scam.
Unfortunately Rathor didn’t hear about the scam until after he phoned to warn his relative that he himself had received a call from someone claiming to be from CRA.
At first Rathor couldn’t hear the caller very well, so he told him he’d call right back on a landline.
When he did, the scammer identified himself as an investigator and immediately quoted a section from CRA and alleged Rathor had been entering false numbers on his income tax returns.
Even though Rathor has been voluntarily preparing hundreds of income tax returns for low income citizens in the Williams Lake area for more than three decades, he said at first the caller sounded valid.
“I was scared,” he said. “He told me they were going to press charges. He told me I had one hour to solve the problem.”
When Rathor insisted the caller send him some information in the mail, he was told he couldn’t.
Earlier this month CRA put out a bulletin alerting Canadians to beware of telephone calls, mail or e-mails that claim to be from the CRA but are not.
CRA also said it does not ever request by e-mail personal information of any kind from a taxpayer. It will never request information from a taxpayer pertaining to a passport, health card, or driver’s license.
“I want the community to be aware of the scam,” Rathor said. “The number of the caller was 613-519-1363.”
