Police say a woman’s concerning tale of being arrested by a scammer pretending to be a police officer before swindling her out of $6,000 was “exaggerated.”
“At no time was she physically approached by people claiming to be police officers,” police said in a statement Friday.
Vancouver police issued a warning Thursday after fraudsters were believed to have posed as police officers and tried to arrest a woman in yet another Canada Revenue Agency scam.
Well, it's been fun tweeting to you all but I don't think you're allowed to tweet in jail and according to the voicemail I just received I'm going to be arrested imminently because of my unpaid taxes… #scamalert #shouldIbringmyownhandcuffs
— Cst. Swallow DPD (@CstSwallow) June 22, 2018
Police said the 58-year-old woman received a phone call around the afternoon before from someone claiming to be from the national tax agency.
The caller told her there was a warrant for her arrest related to a balance owed from her taxes, before connecting her to another fraudster who acted as an RCMP officer.
The woman said two fake RCMP officers showed up at her home, handcuffed her and placed her in an older-model sedan before taking her to a bank to withdraw $6,000.
Major Crime detectives has confirmed that while the woman was scammed out of her money, the rest of her story did not happen.
“Based on the seriousness of the information originally reported by the victim, a team of Major Crime investigators were reassigned to focus on and prioritize this incident,” said Const. Jason Doucette. “Detectives confirmed this morning that the victim was embarrassed for falling for the scam and panicked, deciding to exaggerate her story to include fake police.”
Police are again reminding people the CRA will not threaten customers with arrest, send the police to collect funds, or accept Bitcoin and gift cards as payment.
@ashwadhwani
ashley.wadhwani@bpdigital.caLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
