After a long day at a work event in July, Kathryn Kozody was relieved when she spotted a car with a lit-up taxi sign.
She thought it was odd when the driver told her she’d have to pay her fare with a debit card. Still, a tired Kozody hopped in the car.
“I was like, ‘Fine, it’s kind of weird, but let’s go home,'” said Kozody, who lives in Calgary.
Nothing else seemed off — until the next day when she discovered that almost $2,000 was missing from her bank account. On top of that, her debit card had someone else’s name on it.
Kozody concluded that the taxi driver was a fraudster who, during the debit card transaction, recorded her PIN, stole her card and handed her back a fake.
“I started freaking out,” she said. “It’s terrifying when they have your debit card.”
It took Kozody about two weeks to get her money back from her bank, and she’s still rattled by the experience.
The day after taking what she thought was a ride in a taxi, Kathryn Kozody of Calgary found out someone had withdrawn almost $2,000 from her bank account. (James Young/CBC News)
“It really felt like an invasion of privacy and a violation to be a victim of this scam,” she said. “I really don’t want it to happen to anybody else.”
The taxi scam isn’t new; Toronto and Montreal have been seeing it for years. But the crime is becoming more widespread.
This summer, police in Calgary,Edmonton and at least five cities in southern Ontario, including Kingston and Ottawa, posted warnings online that they had received multiple reports of the scam.
Police and the Canadian Taxi Association say the fraudsters have a helping hand: with the click of a button, they can purchase a generic — but official looking — taxi roof sign on e-commerce sites like Amazon.
Edmonton Police posted this alert on Facebook in July, warning people about an ongoing taxi scam. The city’s police department says that it received about 10 reports of the scam that month. (Edmonton Police/Facebook )
“They do have a moral responsibility to at least sell the signs to individuals that are properly licensed,” said association president Marc André Way.
However, the U.S.-based company continues to sell the product to all customers.
“These lights are legal to sell in Canada,” Amazon told CBC News in an email.
‘Eye-popping’ numbers
The taxi scam has several variations but typically ends the same way: the victim pays with a debit card, then the scammer secretly steals it and hands the victim a similar but fake card. Shortly thereafter, money disappears from the victim’s account.
Ron Hansen, deputy chief of police in Sarnia, Ont., said his department received 12 reports of the scam in July, with one victim losing $9,900.
Toronto police report that since June 2023 the department has received 919 reports of the taxi scam, totalling $1.7 million in losses.
Jessica Chin King of Toronto said after a recent cab ride, she got a suspicious activity alert from her bank. She learned $600 had been withdrawn from her account. (Craig Chivers/CBC)
The numbers are “eye-popping,” said Toronto police detective David Coffey.
“When they do get a victim, they are quick to go right into the bank accounts. They’re quick to empty them out.”
Jessica Chin King of Toronto said just 15 minutes after a recent cab ride, she got a suspicious activity alert from her bank. Turns out, $600 had been withdrawn from her account.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that just happened.’ I was in shock,” said Chin King, whose bank later reimbursed the cash.
She said she too was fooled by the taxi sign atop the car.
“I was in the car with somebody who wasn’t a taxi driver. Anything could have happened,” she said. “I was thankful that it was only my bank [account] that was compromised.”
Taxi light for $35 on Amazon
CBC News bought a taxi sign from Amazon for $35. It has a magnetic strip on the bottom, so it easily sticks to the top of a car.
To power the light, an attached wire can be run through the driver’s window and plugged into the car’s auxiliary power outlet, also known as the cigarette lighter outlet.
The taxi association says licensed taxi drivers typically get their roof signs from speciality suppliers, and they are hardwired to the car — not powered via the cigarette lighter.
“When you see that … it’s obvious that it’s not a legitimate taxi,” said Way, the association president.
“This is not a safe, practical way to distribute the trusted ‘Taxi’ signs,” he wrote.
CBC News ordered this $35 taxi sign on Amazon. The attached wire can be run through the driver’s window and plugged into the car’s auxiliary power outlet, while the lights for licensed drivers are hardwired into the vehicle. (Sophia Harris/CBC News)
But Amazon told Way — and CBC News — the signs will remain on its site, because the company isn’t breaking any rules.
“It’s going to be quite difficult, I think, for anyone to stop Amazon from selling a product that is perfectly legal to sell,” said Toronto criminal lawyer, Daniel Goldbloom. “It’s true that these taxi signs can be used to commit scams, but kitchen knives can be used to commit murder — and we don’t stop retailers from selling those.”
But Way isn’t giving up hope.
He says the taxi association also plans to ask other online retailers, such as Temu and eBay, to stop selling the taxi signs and will lobby provincial governments for legislation that regulates the sale of the product.
However, Coffey said he believes the best way to fight the taxi scam is to educate people about it.
“Never, never give another person control of your debit card,” the detective said.
Victims Chin King and Kozody also want to spread the word.
“The more people know, the less likely it is to happen again to somebody else,” Kozody said.
HALIFAX – Chorus Aviation Inc. says its shareholders have voted to approve the sale of the company’s regional aircraft leasing business to HPS Investment Partners.
The Halifax-based company says the $1.9-billion deal was greenlighted by 98.1 per cent of votes cast by shareholders at a special meeting. The transaction needed approval by a two-thirds majority vote.
Chorus also says the waiting period mandated under U.S. legislation has expired and that it has received approval from Ireland’s Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
Chorus announced the sale of its plane leasing business to New York City-based HPS in July for $814 million in cash and $1.1 billion in aircraft debt to be assumed or prepaid by the buyers at closing.
The deal marked a one-eighty for Chorus, which bet big on aircraft leasing just two years earlier by buying London-based plane-leasing outfit Falko Regional Aircraft Ltd.
Chorus, which also provides regional service for Air Canada via Chorus subsidiary Jazz Aviation, says the sale remains subject to the other regulatory approvals and customary conditions.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.
TORONTO – AGF Management Ltd. says its net income attributable to equity owners totalled $20.3 million in its latest quarter, down from $23.0 million in the same quarter last year.
The investment manager says the profit amounted to 30 cents per diluted share for the quarter which ended on Aug. 31, down from 34 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
Total net revenue for the quarter amounted to $102.0 million, up from $84.0 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, AGF says it earned 37 cents per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 34 cents per diluted share a year ago.
The company says its total assets under management and fee-earning assets totalled $49.7 billion at Aug. 31, up from $42.3 billion a year earlier.
Kevin McCreadie, AGF’s chief executive and chief investment officer, says the company was pleased to see early signs of improvement with positive retail net flows complementing its solid investment performance amid an uncertain economic backdrop and significant market volatility.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.
As of January 2024, Canada is home to more than 3,600 recreational cannabis retail shops and this number is increasing annually with a single store to every 10,000 Canadians. The retail sector has been facing multiple challenges and one is surely overabundance of stores within smaller communities. Too many retailers compared to users of cannabis. The use of cannabis has remained relatively the same, while multiple retailers and online sales forces are competing for this marketplace.
Failures within the retail field are not a surprise, as Tokyo Smoke closes its multiple stores, and most shops’ profit margins remain small and diminishing over time. Mass closures may happen within certain provinces such as Ontario where situations of multiple retailers are situated right beside a competitor. Massive amounts of revenue have been collected by provincial governments while these stores remain open to every possible financial flux possible.
The black market remains healthy and profitable. An excuse to legalize pot was to challenge illegal pot sales and make it difficult to sell this pot outside of legal means. 22% of Canadian pot smokers get their supply from the black market. They say the pot tastes better and is slightly less costly. Legal pot management is costly and this cost is passed onto the customer. With gummy sales growing, the cost of management by legal means is difficult and costly too.
It seems the government may need to rethink its policy regarding cannabis and the possibility of legalizing further types of illicit drugs in the future. A total ack of imagination exists within the policy network where old-fashioned prejudice towards addiction and the use of narcotics is seen as criminal and threatening to society. All the while the number of traffic stops due to drivers under the influence of narcotics continues to grow, and the use of drugs by the youthful generation continues to be a problem. A solution to our society’s problems will never come from present-day authorities.
