A number of Oliver residents have contacted the Oliver RCMP this morning about calls the received regarding their Social insurance Number (SIN). Oliver RCMP want to raise awareness that this is a scam.

The callers will claim to be from one of a couple agencies of the Government of Canada (Service Canada, Canada Revenue, and others) and say that a person’s SIN has been compromised or suspended. The caller then asks for a number of personal details to verify who they are including asking for the SIN. This is a scam to gain your personal information.

Callers can be very aggressive and will threaten to involve the Oliver RCMP or other government agencies. This is also not true.

There have been a number of news stories during the month of October about this scam and how it involves the copying or “spoofing” of government phone numbers. These calls are now targeting Oliver residents.

Oliver RCMP wants to remind residents that they should never give out personal information over the phone unless they started the phone call. The Government of Canada also does not ask for payments to be made by gift cards (Like Amazon or iTunes), digital currency (bitcoin), or online money transfers (paypal or etransfer).

Residents can report deceptive telemarketing to the Canadian Anti- Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 or online.