Cryptocurrency, advance fee loan and online purchase frauds are just a few of the top scams in Canada, according to the Better Business Bureau.
With March marking Fraud Prevention Month, the BBB is out with its annual list of the top 10 riskiest scams in 2021, which swindled Canadians out of $379 million.
Based on data supplied by consumers, the BBB report found that scams related to cryptocurrency jumped from the fourth riskiest scam in 2020 to the riskiest in 2021.
“Although cryptocurrency scams made up only 4.7 per cent of the scams reported to the BBB scam tracker in 2021, the average median dollar loss reported for these scams was $1,500, much higher than the overall median dollar loss of $169 for all scam types,” the report reads.
Advance fee loan scams nabbed second place on the list, making up 6.1 per cent of all scams reported to the BBB with 57.7 per cent reporting losing money.
Online purchase scams made the top three, but dropped from second riskiest scam in 2020 to third riskiest in 2021.
However, the median dollar loss for these scams went from $116 in 2020 to $124 in 2021.
The BBB says online purchase scams continue to make up almost one third of all scams reported by Canadians.
After another year marked largely by the COVID-19 pandemic, BBB research found that 53 per cent of Canadians are shopping online more and 56 per cent are spending more time browsing social media.
Melissa Lanning Trumpower, the executive…
