Canadian Personal Finance Blog

No I am not talking about how the fish stocks might be depleted in 50 years, although that is worrying enough to think about. This fish story is even more interesting, does that make him a prophet?

No this comes from our Phishing friends who enjoy trying to defraud you of money. This is not an e-mail phish this is an actual phone call fraud (read about in my company’s local newsgroups). The con consists of an autodialer calling you, when you answer a recorded message tells you to stay on the phone as an important message, and then someone comes on the line to tell you that you have over $150.00 in unpaid traffic fines in {Insert your favorite city which is close by, but not in your jurisdiction}. The person will then ask for your birthdate and will most likely then attempt to get more information out of you (presumably so they can then steal your identity at a later date). Do NOT answer with any information simply tell them that you don’t give out that information over the phone, and hang up, or play with them if you want. The target in question did a “counter attack” and started asking them for information and then mentioned how this all seemed very odd, and that it sounded a lot like phone fraud to them, which caused the caller to quickly hang up.

Never give out over the phone any personal information, especially to people that you do not know. It just is the wrong thing to do.