The Alberta Securities Commission
Albertans made vulnerable by the province’s tough economy have been increasingly targeted by investment scammers, says a spokeswoman for the province’s securities regulator.
And with Alberta’s economy swooning anew with another massive oil price plunge, that trend is likely to continue, said Hilary McMeekin of the Alberta Securities Commission.
“Scam artists are absolutely preying on it; they’ll use topics of the day,” said McMeekin.
“At the same time, (possible victims) are looking anywhere possible to grow their money.”
Sadly, she said, an Angus Reid poll done in mid-February for the ASC suggests Albertans can be easy marks for con artists, with half of the 1,001 respondents unable to spot the red flags of an investment rip-off.
“Forty-seven per cent couldn’t identify a promise of high returns with low risk,” said McMeekin. “If it’s too good to be true, it likely is.”
Nearly half of those surveyed weren’t alerted to time pressure as a technique used by scammers to quickly defraud victims before they catch on and only 21 per cent were able to identify celebrity endorsements as likely fake.
“Often, those celebrities don’t even know they’re being used,” said McMeekin.
Among the most frequently used frauds are stock promotions involving emerging industries, such as cannabis and crypto-asset investments, she said.
Another one, known as affinity fraud, is particularly painful because it employs the usually unwitting to sell lucrative-looking offers to family and friends — deals often akin to a Ponzi scheme, said McMeekin.
“They bring in people they care about . . . but when it falls apart, everyone’s impacted,” she said.
In the 2019-20 fiscal year, the ASC received 382 complaints, with investigations concluded in 318 of them leading to $1,170,000 in administrative penalties.
Sanctions also include criminal charges and being barred from investing, the latter numbering 22 companies or individuals last year.
In one recent case, Nicholas John Felgate of Rocky View County was charged with fraud and money laundering for allegedly collecting $2 million from 11 Alberta investors.
But McMeekin said many other scams go unreported.
She noted anyone selling investments must be registered with the ASC to do so, adding the public can go to checkfirst.ca to ensure this is the case.
“It’s important people still take the time to do their homework,” she said.
Meanwhile, an Angus Reid poll conducted late last month for the Royal Bank of Canada found 55 per cent of Canadians have admitted to sharing their banking PIN or passwords.
It also suggests 41 per cent of 1,510 survey respondents have said they’ve done one or more of these: used the same phone unlock code as the PIN, kept their PIN written in their wallet or selected their birthday for their banking security number.
Included in that litany of carelessness, says the poll, are PINs written on credit or debit cards and using four digits of their phone numbers.
“In the wrong hands, this information could be detrimental to your financial security,” said Jason Storsley, vice-president of fraud management for RBC.
“Think of it as leaving your house key in the lock, yet expecting that you are protected.”
on Twitter: @BillKaufmannjrn
