A recent telephone scammer's scheme might have been inspired by a legitimate RCMP practice of executing warrants related to outstanding fines, say officials.
In Edmonton, the public has been receiving calls from somebody purporting to be an RCMP officer collecting unpaid taxes and fines.
The fraudsters threaten recipients with jail time if the money is not sent, according to an RCMP press release.
Cpl. Warren Wright, the acting commander of the Didsbury detachment, says no complaints of this kind have been reported to him but adds that if a person has an outstanding fine and does not pay by the due date, the RCMP can notify them once a warrant for arrest has been granted.
“It could be based on a legitimate sort of thing. It is possible that the RCMP do contact people in the community and say, look there's this outstanding fine and there's been a warrant and you need to come in and deal with it,” Wright said.
In such a case, the person would report to the detachment. He or she could be arrested for the warrant to be executed but can secure their release with the fine money, which is forwarded to the courts, he continued.
However, he said people should be vigilant about who comes calling on the other line.
“How does anybody know it's actual police, right,” he said. “Anyone should reasonably know if they've got an outstanding fine they haven't paid, right? Now if you don't, that's the first red flag, right?”
“But if you're phoning up somebody and they've never been in trouble before and they've never been to court, they've never been convicted of anything, why is the police calling,” he continued.
If a person is unsure of an officer's identity, Wright said they should go to the local detachment to confirm or call the RCMP complaint line, especially when con artists are increasingly sophisticated in how they bilk their targets.
“There is a million different variations to basic frauds and they're so very inventive and so very convincing.”
In a similar but unrelated matter, Wright said that calls have been made by the federal prosecutor issuing summons regarding outstanding student loans but the RCMP, which only follows up on Criminal Code, federal and provincial statute convictions, is not involved.
