I share this for information purposes and as a warning to people about scammers.

I received a call from “Officer Paul Smith” of the Canadian Revenue Agency. He got that far into his script before I hung up on him! How rude you might say! So why did I hang up on him? It’s a provincial Holiday, so anyone calling from the government would not be calling here and never on a holiday. Second with my last name being French, they automatically assume I am French speaking and always speak to me in French not English. This officer called in English because he can only speak English. Our Governments are usually bilingual speaking both English and French. Lastly, this is an old scam. CRA only communicated by letter and email but never by a phone call. They are too easy to scam people.

This old con is where Scammers try to warn you about your impending doom, court cases, seizures and arrest should you not send them money instantly. And it must be sent now or they cannot help you with this problem and then bad things will happen to you. Being today is a Provincial holiday it would be very hard to find a place that is open to send money by Western Union. But again scammers don’t know this as they are not even calling from the same country. They can pick up the money from Western Union anywhere in the world. CRA works by checks, bank drafts and gives you many weeks to pay any such bill, as does any western government. Scammers need you to run quickly in a panic and not think of it in any other way then presented. For it you did stop to think about it you would very much reconsider giving money over Western Union. I was watching something on the Large Hadron Collider and that is much more fun to watch than play with this jerk. So I just hung up on him. And yes I do know I am a geek watch such TV, your point being?

Ok, so a little while later the phone just rang again. It was from the same idiot “Officer Paul Smith” of the Canadian Revenue Agency only with a different voice. But the same name. The name is written into their script. If you can believe that. (Face palm) I said very loudly, “It’s a scam, it’s a scam!” The guy kept reading from his script as if that might mean something. So this is over and done with right? Wrong. I get a third and final call only this time it is not “Officer Paul Smith” of the Canadian Revenue Agency; it is an auto dialer with a recorded message from Canadian Revenue Agency telling me I have a problem that must be resolved by sending money yadda yadda yadda. I got online send all three numbers to the CRTC web site to complain about such scammers. It is a shame we do not have a way to contact police about such numbers. I once tried to do that with Bell and they have no way to block calls either. Worse, to report a crime you have to leave a name address and contact number as well as an email address online. I just want to report the crime, not get involved.

Anyways, if contacted by “Officer Paul Smith” of the Canadian Revenue Agency, just hang up the phone.