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Social media say they're publishers? Then meet your obligations as broadcasters!

Rejected submission by barbara hudson mailto:barbara.jane.hudson@icloud.com at 2019-12-03 16:42:47 from the From the "I'm-getting-tired-of-this-shit" dept. dept.
Techonomics

Yesterday was yet another story [www.cbc.ca] about someone receiving a spoofed call from "police" who ended up losing all their money. Try as I might, I'm losing sympathy for the victims. There are public service announcements and news stories every day about these scams.

A Cornwall, Ont., woman has lost all her money after falling victim to a scam the RCMP are calling the top identity fraud in Canada.

Julia-Shea Baker, a 23-year-old server, lost $4,000 to the "SIN scam," a new version of the Canada Revenue Agency fraudulent act that's been used for years to dupe people out of their money.

It all started two weeks ago when Baker got a terrifying call from Service Canada telling her that her social insurance number had been compromised. The caller identified himself as RCMP investigator Steve Rogers.

The caller told her a car rented in her name had been discovered abandoned in south Toronto with blood residue on the seats and 10 kilograms of cocaine inside.

The "officer," who gave Baker a badge number and a case number, told her that her name and social insurance number were involved in a drug and money-laundering investigation.

"My heart started racing, my palms started sweating," Baker said. "I was absolutely panicked. I was terrified, absolutely terrified."

When she questioned the officer's story, he called her back from a different phone number. The caller ID showed up as belonging to the Cornwall RCMP. She looked for the number on Google and it seemed legitimate.

In September, the RCMP warned Cornwall residents their phone number was being "spoofed" — used fraudulently to make it look as if scammers were calling from the local detachment. Call lasted hours

"Steve Rogers" told Baker the RCMP would take care of getting her a new SIN, but to protect her money, she had to transfer her savings to secure gift cards.

He instructed her to drive to grocery stores and pharmacies across Cornwall to buy up Google Play gift cards, all the while staying on the line to make sure she did what she was told.

After several purchases, her debit card was declined, so the caller told her to go to her bank and withdraw all the cash she had left to buy more gift cards. When she'd done that, he ordered Baker to call the bank to increase her credit limit, then buy yet more gift cards.

"This went on for four and a half hours," Baker said. In that time, she spent $4,000 to buy 35 gift cards.

The whole time, the caller stayed on the line, carefully taking note of the gift card numbers and codes.

Baker said she broke down in tears several times during the ordeal, but the man on the phone kept reiterating she couldn't tell anyone what was going on, and if she did, she could be implicated in the investigation.

Steve Rogers? Captain America? Seriously?

The message isn't getting out there in part because people have their noses buried in social media. Facebook and Youtube says they're not publishers, fine. Then they're broadcasters, and should be required to carry public service announcements about scams like these, on their dime. Non-skippable.

Instead of just moaning and groaning about this online, I'd like to get people's reactions, then forward the discussion link to politicians - complete with pros and cons.

Thanks.


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