While Joelle McDonald has had her banking information compromised before, this type of scam was different. It incited, "a whole different level of fear," she said. (Joelle McDonald/Submitted)

Saskatoon woman felt ‘terrified’ during Canada Post phone call scam

By Marija Robinson Dec 9, 2025 | 2:56 PM

A Canada Post scam call had one Saskatoon woman believing that she’d be going to jail last Friday.

After missing a phone call on Dec. 4 from an unknown Saskatoon number, Joelle McDonald made sure to answer when that same number called her around 9 a.m. on Dec. 5.

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The man on the other end of the phone identified himself as a Canada Post worker and said he was calling about a package that was scheduled for delivery to McDonald’s home. She thought the package in question was for a pair of shoes she was waiting for.

He told McDonald he needed to verify her address because the package was “flagged as fraud” by the police. Since he claimed to be from Canada Post, she shared where she lived without questioning it.

According to McDonald, that’s when he said her package was opened and inside were three driver’s licenses and three blocks of checks with her name, in addition to $7,000.

He kept her on the phone and when McDonald, a yoga instructor, told him she had to leave for work he said she couldn’t leave the house because police were on their way.

“‘They’re going to be there in 10 to 15 minutes to arrest you. You will be put into jail because this is all in your name, and you have done something very illegal,’” McDonald remembered him saying.

When she questioned why she was getting arrested he said it was “because of this fraud that you’ve committed.”

McDonald started thinking of worst case scenarios, “terrified” that the man on the other end was telling her the truth.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God. I’m not a criminal.’ And I was trying to, like, visualize myself in jail,” she said.

But, that’s when McDonald turned the tables on the man on the other end of the phone, telling him she’d call the police herself, despite his insistence she not do so.

“I said, ‘No, I’m going to call the Saskatoon city police myself right now, because you’re scaring the crap out of me,’ and then he hung up on me,” she said.

While the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) representative said the call was likely coming from someone outside the city who got a Saskatoon number, she told McDonald she’d send an officer to patrol and area and asked whether anyone had shown up to her house yet.

They hadn’t, but since the call, McDonald felt uneasy.

“Now I feel vulnerable because I gave them my address,” she said.

SPS response

SPS told McDonald’s that she’s “not the first person that this has happened to lately” as “this has been happening in the city.”

But, in a request for comment, the SPS wrote that, “we are actually seeing fewer of these types of scams this year,” although it couldn’t provide exact numbers “due to the way we code calls for service.”

The police service advised anyone receiving these calls to contact Canada Post and verify what they’re being told.

While SPS didn’t touch on why someone would benefit from this type scam, especially because McDonald didn’t lose any money in the process, she has her own suspicions.

She guessed the plan was to keep her on the phone longer in the hopes that she’d eventually share her banking information.

After having her credit card information stolen years ago because of a contest scam on Facebook, McDonald said she learned her lesson. So, if the Canada Post scammer asked for that, “there’s no way” she would have given it, she said.

But, for the caller to ask for her address, “it seemed like a normal thing to do because it’s Canada Post and they’re trying to do a delivery,” McDonald said.