Scams and digital fraud on the rise in Saskatchewan

Investors and businesses need to be more and more wary when wading through transactions online these days, as reports of fraud and scams pile up.

Fraud in Saskatchewan is becoming more digital, according to Billy Groenen, an RCMP staff sergeant who oversees a unit that investigates financial crimes in the central belt of the province.

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“Most of them are not done in person, so they’re done through text messages or emails, which makes it a challenge for enforcement because they’re often not local suspects and then they’re out of province, and those create other investigational challenges,” explained Groenen.

As digital payments and fund transfers grow more popular, Groenen said police are seeing a rise in the number fraudsters who manipulate those transfers in order to get into accounts and get payments.

One of the biggest trends police are seeing today, Groenen said, is a rise in situations where a scammer impersonates a business and then reaches out to clients and parallel businesses, announcing a change in payment details which ends up routing money to the scammer instead of to the business. He said payments can sometimes remain misdirected for months before someone figures it out.

“By the time it’s caught, there can be significant funds going out,” Groenen said.

It appears the Sun West School Division fell victim to that exact type of fraud this summer, losing $5,599. According to the latest loss report from the provincial government, payroll was “misdirected” to the wrong account “as a result of someone fraudulently impersonating an employee and initiating a change to banking information.”

The report said that in the future, the school division will require confirmation through direct contact to verify changes to banking information and will implement an employee log-in system for changes to personnel information.

Groenen said the most important steps the public can take to prevent that kind of fraud are paying attention to the details and, when in doubt, verifying exactly what’s going on.

“Any changes to billing information should be legitimized through the companies and not just done digitally,” he said.

Groenen said any time you’re sending money, it should be verified by another means other than someone reaching out to you, and any communication with unknown persons in that realm, by email or text, should be disregarded.

He said things like e-transfers, QR codes and emailed cheques should be scrutinized by both customers and businesses.

A way to check if a communication is legitimate, besides reaching out to that person in another way, is looking carefully at the email address – the company name might be changed by one letter, or a scammer might add an ‘S’ to the name where there wasn’t one before.

“It can seem legitimate, and then at some point there’s a change in banking information and payments, and then the fraud begins,” said Groenen.

Consumer scams

While the RCMP is dealing with more digital fraud, the Financial and Consumer Affairs Authority (FCAA) in Saskatchewan is seeing more reports of fraud as well.

The authority said reports of investment scams are up across Canada, and it has been seeing an increase in impersonation scams where the fraudsters use the likeness of someone like the prime minister or a premier to promote fake investment opportunities.

The scammers are getting more opportunities to get at victims thanks to advances in technology and more use of social media, according to the FCAA.

The authority said a lot of those scams are perpetrated by organized crime rings based outside of Canada. It noted that anyone selling securities or derivatives in Saskatchewan has to be registered, and advised people to check registrations online before investing.

That type of fraud can be very lucrative for the perpetrators. In 2024, the FCAA said it opened 37 files involving investment fraud, accounting for nearly $3.7 million in losses.

In Canada, investment fraud in 2024 accounted for about $311 million in lost investment money from 4,076 incidents, according to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

The FCAA said there are a number of red flags people need to watch out for when investing. Those include unregistered entities offering investment opportunities, unsolicited messages from strangers with investment offers, promises of too-good-to-be-true returns, pressure to act quickly, requests for large amounts of money to unlock earnings, requests to keep the investment secret and pressure to borrow money to invest.

The authority warned people to be careful when they’re approached by strangers online, saying scammers often try to develop a friendship or romantic relationship with targets in order to build trust.

It suggested people consider an investment and make sure they understand how the product or service works first, and get a second opinion or seek professional advice before sending any money.