The Williams Lake and District Credit Union will be holding a senior fraud awareness information session this weekend.
The session is set to be held at the Creekside Seniors Centre on May 24 at 1 p.m., and will be a free information session designed to help seniors recognize, avoid, and protect themselves from scams and fraud. Shayla Edlund, the branch manager of the 100 Mile House Williams Lake and District Credit Union, said they decided to hold this event because of all the different fraud situations they have seen in 100 Mile.
"We are all about our community, so we wanted to provide a free session to build awareness and to help prevent future loss," Edlund said.
Throughout the event, there will be free brochures as well as slide shows with information about the most common scams, with attendees encouraged to ask plenty of questions throughout.
Edlund said "how to know some of the signs, and what to do if you feel you are in a position where you might be a target of a fraudster or a scammer" will be some of the tips that will be shown throughout the event.
"We are excited to be able to share some valuable information in hopes to help members of our community be able to prevent future loss," Edlund explained.
Last year, according to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), around 49,432 fraud and scam reports were processed, with there being around 34,621 victims of fraud in Canada, leading to over $600 million being lost. Cases of fraud that have happened in 100 Mile House mainly consist of emergency and tech support scams.
"Mostly phone calls stating an emergency that the grandchild is in need of funds to bail them out of jail, or a different situation, also a lot of tech support scams where the laptop has a pop-up stating that their computer needs to be cleaned," wrote Edlund.
Seniors are particularly affected by grandparents' scams, investment scams, as well as tech support, caregiver and romance scams, stated Edlund. She also does not believe that seniors are more susceptible to fraud than other groups, but they seem to be the most recent target.
Edlund says the Williams Lake and District Credit Union's staff are enrolled in fraud training every year and work actively to detect and investigate irregular account activity.
"We provide information, advice and resources posted on our website as well as in branch," Edlund said.
Her advice to seniors who are facing any situation related to fraud is to listen to their gut.
"If it doesn't feel quite right, it probably isn't - hang up the phone, delete that e-mail or delete the text, do not reply - if they say it's a loved one, you tell them that you will call them back or call a trusted friend and have a chat about it and don't ever feel embarrassed. The fraudsters are trained to outsmart us all," Edlund wrote.
In the case of being scammed, Edlund advises "you should immediately contact your financial institutions to place restrictions on your accounts and reset or block your online banking - also report to the RCMP right away."
