Canadians might want to check their mailboxes closely this year to make sure everything is showing up.
Complaints of mail-forwarding fraud for 2016 are more than seven times higher than for 2015, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
The scheme involves a fraudster impersonating someone and rerouting that person’s mail through Canada Post, either to a residence or a business address.
Often, the unsuspecting victim doesn’t realize he or she has been targeted until that person receives a slip in the mail alerting that the address has been changed.
“If you … have received a mail-forwarding notification in the mail, or either you’ve seen that your mail has stopped, they [fraudsters] definitely have your information, and it’s probably a lot worse than what you think,” said Lisanne Roy Beauchamp, acting team leader for the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, a federal agency that collects information and criminal intelligence on various types of fraud, including identity theft.
Fraud complaints on the riseThe centre received 479 complaints of mail-forwarding fraud in 2016, a rise from 63 the year before.
Officials say that’s only a fraction of what’s actually happening.
Address changes typically happen through Canada Post’s online system, with fraudsters typically rerouting mail to a location that is either abandoned, vacant or up for sale.
Roy Beauchamp said the information a fraudster needs to make a mail-forwarding request — your name, main phone number and address — can easily be found online…
Source: Mail-forwarding fraud complaints jump more than 700% in 2016