March 7, 2007

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  NEWS: Canadians Target Identity Theft

  A discouraging study by the Strategic Counsel for the Competition Bureau of Canada showed recently that 1 in 6 (or 17%) of adults from the age of 18 up have been victims of identity theft. The Competition Bureau conducted a phone survey in May 2006 of 1,000 Canadian households. More discouraging is the news that even more Canadians have been affected by marketing fraud – one in three, according to the survey! Sadly, an estimated 43% of those victimized in marketing scams do not attempt to report or resolve the issue using the means available to them, insisting that it would be too much of a hassle. Only 8% took the issue to police, and fewer still to other avenues, such as the Competition Bureau, business groups or the fraud hotline PhoneBusters. Instead, these people attempted to resolve the issue by themselves, by either stopping payment, getting a new card, contacting the company in question, or seeking a refund.
  
  The news that Canadians are being preyed upon in mass quantities has prompted the Competition Bureau to launch a fraud prevention month for March. Along with the federal privacy commissioner and the RCMP, the Competition Bureau has arranged events to both promote awareness and lend a guiding hand to those citizens who may need education and helpful tools in the fight against fraud. They include Scam Jams, which are one-day educational events that will help consumers prevent and counter fraud, as well as large-scale shredding events in 20 cities where citizens can bring their personal and sensitive documents to be shredded. The Competition Bureau is hoping that the month-long events will push one big message: that everyone –regardless of age, race, education level, or income- is at risk of fraud.
  
  Moreover, the nation's privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, is pushing hard for anti-spam legislation to be enacted. Canada is the only G-8 nation without protective consumer spam laws, and Stoddart sees that deficiency as a big contributor to the country's fraud prevalence. Most notably, "phishing" e-mail schemes occur when scamsters send fake (but legit-looking) messages to people with the intent to divest them of personal information.
  
  
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