The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is warning Canadians to beware of emails and phone calls that clam to be from the CRA but are not. These are scams and taxpayers should never respond to these fraudulent communications. They use the CRA name, a fake link or a fake website to try to request personal information such as a Social Insurance Number, credit card number, bank account number, or passport number and etc.
According to the CRA’s website, the CRA will not do the following:
- send email with a link and ask you to divulge personal or financial information;
(Exception: If you call the CRA to request a form or a link for specific information, a CRA agent will forward the information you are requesting to your email during the telephone call. This is the only circumstance in which the CRA will send an email containing links.) - ask for personal information of any kind by email or text message.
- request payments by prepaid credit cards.
- give taxpayer information to another person, unless formal authorization is provided by the taxpayer.
- leave personal information on an answering machine.
If you receive these emails or phone calls, please ignore them.
For more information about how to protect yourself against fraud, please visit the CRA’s website.
