Recently the Oak Bay Police have received complaints from residents in the Greater Victoria area as well as some Ontario residents, advising that they have received a phone call where the caller is stating he is an investigator with the Canada Revenue Agency. The caller states that taxes are owed by the resident and if they don’t pay promptly the police will be coming to arrest them. The caller has a heavy accent.

In this recent scam the number showing on the recipients call display is the Oak Bay Police switchboard number, however the scammers can manipulate any number so that it will show on the call display on the recipients’ phone in order to make the call look legitimate. This is called Caller ID Spoofing.

If you get any calls similar to this, disregard it. CRA will never call and make claims or demands like this. Police encourage the public to refer to the CRA website which has many warnings about this scam.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/ntcs/bwr-eng.html