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Toronto caregiver charged in sex assault of elderly woman

12/21/2011  | CityNews.ca staff

James Stewart Brown, 57. CITYNEWS.

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Male caregiver charged with sexually assaulting elderly woman

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Toronto caregiver charged after elderly woman sexually assaulted

An employee of a Toronto long-term care facility has been charged in the alleged sex assault of an elderly woman with Alzheimer's disease, Toronto police say.

James Stewart Brown, 57, was arrested Tuesday evening and charged with sexual assault. He is a personal support worker at Kensington Gardens long-term care centre at 45 Brunswick Ave.

It’s alleged that Brown sexually assaulted the 88-year-old woman in her bathroom at the facility. A nurse walked in and caught the alleged assault and called management officials who say they immediately called police.

Brown has worked at the facility for the past seven years, helping to bathe and dress residents.

Police believe there may be other victims.

Brown is scheduled to appear in court on Friday.

The Ministry of Health has been contacted and will launch an investigation

One man visiting a relative at Kensington Gardens said he was shocked and told CityNews, "I hope it's a very rare type of incident."

The victim was sent to hospital for a checkup and has since returned to the facility, management said.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-1400, Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477), online at www.222tips.com, text TOR and your message to CRIMES (274637), or Leave A Tip on Facebook.

Ontario doctor faces another sexual assault charge

Dr. Amitabh Chauhan speaks to the media in Toronto on Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2011.

ctvtoronto.ca

Date: Tuesday Jun. 14, 2011 2:52 PM ET

An Ontario doctor accused of sexual assaulting a woman earlier this year faces more charges after another woman alleged he drugged and assaulted her eight years ago.

Toronto police announced fresh charges on Tuesday against Dr. Amitabh Chauhan, 33, of Ancaster.

It is alleged that in September or October of 2003 the suspect met a 21-year-old victim in Kingston and put an unknown substance in her drink. He is accused of then sexually assaulting her.

Chauhan has been charged with administering a drug for sex and sexual assault. He is scheduled to appear in court at Old City Hall on Tuesday.

Chauhan was previously accused alongside another doctor of gang sexual assault, as well as administering a noxious substance.

The charges were laid after a 23-year-old woman told police she met two men at a Toronto bar on Feb. 13. She says something was slipped in her drink and she was then sexually assaulted in a Toronto hotel.

Chauhan and Dr. Suganthan Kayilasanathan were released on bail in February and hired a public relations firm to help declare their innocence.

The pair has been friends since childhood. Kayilasanathan works as a family physician at a clinic on Markham Road, while Chauhan works in the plastic surgery department at Hamilton's McMaster University.

Chauhan, a naval reservist with the Canadian Forces, graduated from Kingston's Royal Military College in 2002. In 2004 he began training to become a pilot but left the program the following year, according to the Department of National Defence.

Chauhan joined the naval reserve in 2008 and holds the rank of acting sub-lieutenant.

Police believe there are other victims and ask anyone with information to contact police at 416-808-7474 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).

Alleged scam artist facing 38 fraud charges

Published On Sat Apr 23 2011

Kelly Marges, 44, of Toronto, faces 38 fraud charges after police say he scammed a 90-year-old man out of $66,450. Police believe there may be other victims.

SUBMITTED IMAGE

Christine Dobby Staff Reporter

A Toronto man faces 38 fraud charges after he allegedly swindled a 90-year-old man out of nearly $70,000.

The accused, posing as a roofing repair man, met the elderly victim sometime in 2009, when the older man hired him to fix his eaves trough, according to Toronto police.

Once the repairs were complete, police say the accused befriended the victim and worked to gain his trust, visiting him often and bringing him gifts.

The alleged scam artist told the victim he was a successful contractor involved in a large, potentially lucrative project. He began asking the victim for small loans, guaranteeing handsome returns.

But he never repaid the money, according to police, who say that between December 2009 and March 2011, the accused tricked the victim out of his life savings worth $66,450.

The accused is known to operate in the Victoria Park Ave. and Kingston Rd. area, police say.

Police arrested Kelly Marges, 44, on Saturday, charging him with one count of fraud over $5,000 and 37 counts of fraud under $5,000. He is set to appear in Old City Hall court Saturday morning.

There may be other victims, say police, who are asking anyone with information to contact Det. Joe Digiovanni or Det. Const. Conrad Wong of 41 division at 416-808-4104.

Police lay charges after alleged nursing home sex assault

2011/04/04 | Ashleigh Smollet, CityNews.ca

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Leonid Kozlov. Courtesy TORONTO POLICE.

Toronto police have charged a suspect after an elderly resident was allegedly sexually assaulted by an employee of her west end nursing home.

Police say on Monday April 4 at around 3 a.m., a 70-year-old resident of the Castleview Nursing Home at 351 Christie St. was sexually assaulted by a male employee.

“We put them in here to be looked after, not abused. Our trust is in there guy’s hands, so to hear something like that is very disturbing,” said Marcello Cucullo, whose parent is a resident at the Castleview Nursing home.

Police have arrested and charged Leonid Kozlov, 45, of Toronto with sexual assault.

Kozlov has been employed as a Registered Practical Nurse at Castleview for the past five years.

He appeared in court Monday and is being held for 72 hours while police continue their investigation. Kozlov will appear in court again Wednesday for a bail hearing.

“It is something very disturbing, especially when we’re dealing with someone who is very vulnerable and someone who is in a position of authority, a person who is supposed to be there to help and assist is something that’s very disturbing. That’s why we’re asking for any other information that may be able to assist us in further investigations,” said Toronto police Cst. Wendy Drummond.

Police are concerned there may be other victims. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at (416) 808-1304 or Crime Stoppers at (416) 222-TIPS.

Mallick: North America's first serial killer ended 'career' in Toronto

Published On Fri Oct 8 2010

H.H. Holmes may have killed as many as 200 people.

supplied photo

By Heather Mallick Star Columnist

Serial killing in North America had to start somewhere and here, six feet under a bit of grass in St. James Cemetery in downtown Toronto, is where the first serial killer’s final victims were laid to rest.

H.H. Holmes, a Chicago doctor, killed the two girls buried here —Alice and Nellie Pitezel — in 1894 in a pretty house at 16 St. Vincent St. that used to stand near Bay and Breadalbane Sts. He raped them, put them in a small sealed trunk, gassed them, cut up their bodies and buried them in a cellar hole.

They were found months later by a meticulous and determined American cop named Frank Geyer who joined an insurance case and then realized he was after a murderer. If Geyer hadn’t succeeded, we might never have known how the murderous psychopaths of European history were outdone by a man who was extreme even beside the 15th century child killer Gilles de Rais and Jack the Ripper. The Holmes case was internationally famous, the O.J. Simpson case of its time and then some.

Henry Holmes sprang from nothing, came out of nowhere. It wasn’t until he was on trial that a Chicago journalist came up with the term “multimurderer” which would stand for a century until we got serious about studying how killers like Holmes are made.

Few people in Toronto, and even Chicago, have heard of Holmes. But I hadn’t either, having read a book on Holmes a decade ago and thrown it away, unwilling to believe such a man had existed and simply vanished from memory.

Our high school history doesn’t venture back too far. Say “serial killer” and you think Ted Bundy (smooth and plausible), or Clifford Olson (preferred children), or Robert Pickton (preyed on drug addicts). Because journalists fail to put news stories in context, we think each psychopath comes freshly assembled. But they’re more alike than different, as smart researchers like Elliott Leyton and John Douglas have shown. We fail to grasp that they have no empathy, no remorse, nothing normal in them because our own normality blocks such an understanding.

In fact there is a chain of serial killers throughout history. They’re not singular, but rather a track or a timeline. They learn each other’s patterns through news reports and dream up things on their own. Holmes did such appalling things that it’s astonishing that we’ve had 115 years to shudder over him and haven’t bothered.

Holmes was born Herman Mudgett in New Hampshire. As a small boy, he was beaten by his father, saw a friend fall to his death from an abandoned barn they were exploring, and was bullied by neighbourhood boys who brought him face to face with his greatest fear, a skeleton hanging in the village doctor’s office. He dissected small animals while they were still alive, and went to the University of Michigan’s medical school where he spent a lot of time dissecting corpses.

It’s a standard checklist for the modern serial killer, but imagine how few constraints there were on psychopaths of the Holmes era: no fingerprints, DNA, refrigeration, quick photography, blood typing or central record-keeping. People were identified by their head widths and foot lengths. Autopsies were little more than a haphazard dicing. It was open season for a man with fresh ideas.

Holmes’ stroke of luck was to go to Chicago during the Gilded Age, when people streamed to the city to make their fortune, and when the invention of the phone, the lightbulb and the car were making life frantic, anonymous, and crucially, more transitory. By 1886, when Holmes arrived to construct a huge, strangely designed three-storey building known as the “Castle” in the Chicago suburb of Englewood, the city was preparing for the World’s Fair of 1893. It drew tens of millions of visitors, hundreds of whom were to stay in the cramped bedrooms of the Castle hotel for a night or two. Holmes greeted them pleasantly and impressed the ladies. More than 100 young women worked at the Castle over the years. Many guests and employees simply vanished.

The Castle was built by workers hired short-term to prevent any one person from grasping the true weirdness of the structure. Harold Schechter’s meticulous book, Depraved, and Erik Larson’s 2003 The Devil in the White City, describe a sort of claustrophobic Escher hell, an airless human anthill. There were three dozen rooms each on the second and third floors: some airtight and lined with asbestos-proofed steel plates, some soundproofed, others no bigger than closets. There were secret corridors, sliding panels and gas tubes in each room leading to a control panel in Holmes’ private bedroom.

As police discovered, aghast, after Holmes’ arrest, there was a dumbwaiter shaft where victims were hanged, arriving in the basement freshly strangled. There were greased chutes on each floor to send other bodies down to the basement room where Holmes had a huge kiln with slide-in tray, acid tanks, quicklime vats, a dissecting table and something called an “elasticity determinator.” He said it would make people taller, but in fact it was used to stretch them to death, their bones, tendons and blood vessels snapping as they died bursting and screaming, a few feet from a busy Chicago street.

Holmes was a lifelong conman to his core and he killed his targets. Every person he extracted money from would mysteriously disappear, women with 1890s names like Emeline, Minnie, Georgiana and Mabel. But in that era, people were who they said they were. There wasn’t much paperwork to trace if Holmes said the sister of his wife-to-be had gone to Germany by way of Milwaukee. She might have, she might not.

And this was the particular tragedy of the Chicago World’s Fair. It increased the mobility of a settled country, and attracted at least 50 young women visitors, naive and eager to explore, who were never seen again. Holmes’ Castle had had hundreds of paying guests. Holmes may have killed as many as 200 people. Ribcages, hanks of hair, all manner of matter was found in the Castle, but the victims would never be named. Class mattered then as much as it did in the Pickton case, and the police only looked for missing people of wealth.

Some deaths stand out even in the midst of all this, as we know from Holmes’ partial confessions. The vault was the worst. Victims would be trapped inside as the air grew increasingly stale, Holmes would sit outside and listen to them cry out, as he explained the death he had planned for them. If he grew bored, he’d send in the poison gas. Some victims starved, some tried to pick through to the exterior brick, some struck out pointlessly in the dark and slowly asphyxiated.

Alice and Nellie were the daughters of Ben Pitezel, a naive hard-drinking handyman who fell in with Holmes. He was chloroformed to death in a Holmes insurance fraud. Holmes then hustled Pitezel’s family — his wife Carrie, Alice, 15, Nellie, 11, and Howard, 8 — from city to city, rented room to rented room, in an effort to outrun the police and conceal his murder of their father.

Holmes strangled Howard. The detective found the blackened mass of the little boy’s charred torso packed in a chimney in an Indianapolis suburb. Alice and Nellie never made it past Toronto.

Toronto, where the coroner’s inquest was held, was kind to Carrie Pitezel and buried her two daughters on July 20, 1895, the day before Chicago police first entered the killer’s Castle. The burial was free of charge, one coffin atop the other. The grave is unmarked, but the place is well-tended and peaceful, the cemetery staff helpful and kind.

So what do we make of Holmes? He arrived at Union Station, he shopped at the then-Eaton store at Yonge and College Sts., he left two little bodies here and earned our hate and we never speak of him. His quickie “autobiography” was a pack of lies and his hanging on May 7, 1896, at Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia was prolonged and painful.

Elliott Leyton says serial killers appear in times of particular social tension. Widespread financial chaos, for instance, equally disorients individuals. Serial killers didn’t make big news again until 1924 with Leopold and Loeb, also from Chicago. And then came the Black Dahlia case, Charlie Starkweather and so on, thick and fast. There are now too many serial killers for police to track and for readers to remember.

But what explains the first stunning act of Holmes and his subsequent path? You can sit quietly at Alice and Nellie’s gravesite and come up with nothing but grief, which doesn’t help at all.

Canadian Accused Of Conning Seniors To Be Featured On America's Most Wanted

2010/09/22 | The Canadian Press

Suspect, Richard Earl Rupert

Police in Toronto are hoping Saturday's episode of the "America's Most Wanted" TV show will help flush out a man accused of fleecing the elderly.

Richard Earl Rupert is alleged to have stolen thousands of dollars from seniors, ranging from 78 to 95 after befriending them in their retirement homes.

Police allege Rupert, 54, presents himself as a distant relative, usually a nephew, and then convinces his victims to provide him with money for travel, car repairs or rent.

A Canada-wide warrant has been issued for Rupert alleging geriatric victims in other Ontario communities such as Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Waterloo and St. Catharines, as well as Vancouver, Calgary and Winnipeg.

Police say Rupert, a native of Windsor, Ont., eluded Winnipeg police last month after he was spotted by a bank employee.

Toronto Det. John Dunlop says Rupert faces several counts of robbery, break-and-enter, fraud under $5,000, attempted fraud under $5,000 and theft under $5,000.

"He preys on the most vulnerable of society," Dunlop said.

America's Most Wanted producer Jon Lieberman said the segment on Rupert will air on prime time across Canada and the United States.

"I never like to predict, but this is a guy we have so many images of that I think somebody out there will recognize him and then do the right thing by turning him in," said Lieberman.

Toronto Police released video of the suspect in January. Check it out below.

Police issue warning after two-time rapist released from jail

Published On Thu Sep 23 2010

Convicted rapist Ronald Peter Tibando, 46, whom police say is at high risk to reoffend, has been released from prison and will be living in Toronto.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Tamara Baluja Staff Reporter

A two-time convicted rapist who police say is at high-risk to reoffend has been released after serving his complete jail time.

Toronto police Const. Meaghan Gray warned the public that Ronald Peter Tibando, 46, will be living in Toronto after his release from prison on Thursday.

The Behavioural Assessment Section of the Toronto Police Service Sex Crimes Unit “assessed Ronald Tibando as a high-risk to reoffend,” Gray said in a release.

Tibando had been sentenced to 20 years for sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, forcible confinement and assault causing bodily harm.

In 1980, he attacked two women in underground parking garages in Toronto. Nine years later, while out on parole, Tibando sexually assaulted another woman in Peel region.

During his incarceration, he assaulted a female staff member and forcibly confined another in the same incident in May 1993, police said.

Police haven’t specified which area of Toronto Tibando will be living in, but said he will be under a number of restrictions.

He will report weekly to police, is not allowed to have contact with his prior victims, or visit any public parks or underground parking zones. Tibando cannot buy or consume alcohol or non-prescription drugs. He is also under curfew between

‘Lovey-dovey’ con man defrauds six women of $1.5 million

Published On Mon Sep 13 2010

Arvind Kumar Sanmugam, 49, is charged with defrauding at least six women of $1.5 million.

SUPPLIED PHOTO

A Toronto man is accused of using his charm to dupe at least six women of $1.5 million, becoming engaged to two of them along the way.

Police said the man targeted single women and senior citizens, two of whom were widows, by portraying himself as a venture capitalist and prominent businessman.

He used eHarmony.com, an online dating service, to meet his victims and then woo them, said Det. Tom Hartford of the fraud squad.

“He’s a master manipulator,” Hartford said. “He’s very smooth and talks very lovey-dovey to them.”

The man would begin the con by gaining the victim’s trust and impressing them with his various business successes, even though he had none, police said. Then he would offer them great returns through his investment channels if they gave him their money.

The man said he was chairman of the World Police Academy which trains officers on the value of human rights, according to its website. The academy’s building was nothing more than a vacant house on Eglinton Ave. W., Hartford said.

Two victims were a family physician and her mother, police said.

“She is a very smart woman but was just taken in by this man,” Hartford said. “They are completely embarrassed.”

Another victim discovered the scheme when police got in touch with her in the Philippines on Friday — while she was scouting locations for the man’s supposed coffee shop venture.

“She is in a state of disbelief,” said Hartford, adding the victim’s mother, father and stepmother were also swindled.

The investigation began when a Vancouver woman complained she lost her life savings, and was forced to sell her home and rent an apartment, police said. The woman was in town visiting her daughter.

Police found two women who said they were engaged to the man. Their parents are also victims.

“He wants to eradicate poverty, he told one of his victims,” Hartford said.

Police believe there may be more victims.

Arvind Kumar Sanmugam, 49, faces several charges, including two counts of fraud over $5,000.

Anyone with information is asked to call police at 416-808-7303 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS.

Cops in Winnipeg, Toronto join forces to search for man wanted in senior scams

The Canadian Press

Richard Earl Rupert, 54, is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant. (Image courtesy of Toronto police)

TORONTO — Police in Toronto and Winnipeg are joining forces to hunt for a man they allege has been ripping off seniors.

A Canada-wide warrant has been issued for 54-year-old Richard Earl Rupert.

Police are calling him a person of interest in a large number of related offences targeting senior citizens in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.

The suspect is wanted on numerous charges including robbery, break and enter, theft and fraud.

Winnipeg police responded to a call last week about a senior possibly being directed to withdraw money from a bank machine, but both the senior and the man with him left before officers arrived.

Police allege there have been 20 victims ranging in age from 78 to 95.

Peel Police make arrests in $8M investment fraud case

Better Business Bureau announces Top Ten Scams for 2009

This year, the Top Ten Scams focuses in on dubious practices of online commerce, asking consumers to read the fine print BEFORE you click “yes.” Complaints in 2009 run the gamut from teeth whiteners to premium text messages to government grants, but all tie back to consumers unwittingly consenting to sign up for the service or product.

“We often chastise ourselves for the impulse buy at the check-out isle, but when we are online we often skip reading the terms in conditions to get in on a deal,” says Lynda Pasacreta, BBB President and CEO. “Web marketers are saavy to consumers who click first and ask questions later, and are reaping record profits from it.”

The following Top Ten Scams list is developed jointly by the BBB, Business Practices and Consumer Protection Authority of BC, Competition Bureau of Canada, BC Crime Prevention Association and BC Securities Commission. In no specific order, here are the Top Ten Scams for 2009.

1. Health Claim Scams

Bogus products that make “breakthrough” health claims on the Internet or promise cures for illnesses, such as cancer, target the most vulnerable consumers. Be wary of on-line swine flu remedies not authorized by Health Canada that are making unsubstantiated health claims that they kill or ward off the virus. Consult your health care practitioner before trying any new treatment. Don’t be influenced by “miraculous” testimonials discussed on websites and blogs. Think twice before buying a product that claims it can “do it all.”

QUICK TIP: If you have questions or complaints about counterfeit drugs and/or drugs purchased over the Internet, please call Health Canada’s toll-free line at 1 800 267 9675. If you suspect that a website is promoting a treatment or cure that is too good to be true, please contact the Competition Bureau toll free at 1 800 348 5358 or go to competitionbureau.gc.ca/info

2. Not So “Free” Trials

You may want to try out a new diet product, an acne cream or teeth whitener, but be careful about signing up for ‘free’ trial offers. Many websites offering a free trial for products do not disclose the billing terms and conditions or do not have such details prominently displayed on their website. Before providing any credit or debit card information, review the website fully to avoid in repeated billing. Remember that money transfers and direct debit are two of the main methods by which scam artists seek to obtain your money.

QUICK TIP: When considering trial offers, be sure to first determine whether you are enrolling in a membership, subscription or service contract that allows the company

to charge fees to credit cards. To file a complaint, go to bbb.org

3. ID Theft

Often people find out that they are victims of identity theft after they are contacted by a collections’ agency for an account they never set up or because their credit has taken a hit. ID theft is when someone uses your information to obtain loans, goods, or services and does not pay the bills. Increasingly, people are being lured online into revealing personal information.

QUICK TIP: Do not fall for requests for information, or other scare tactics. Online scammers send emails that look legitimate, requesting that your “account information needs to be updated.” Another new tactic called “scareware” has a pop-up message showing that your computer is infected with a virus and that you need to visit a website to purchase and download anti-virus software that would fix the problem. These are all phishing tactics, ways to get you to reveal personal or financial information. If you receive these messages just delete them and do not click on any links. Doing so may compromise your computer’s security. If you are a victim of ID Theft call your financial institutions to request that your current cards be cancelled and that new cards be issued. You should also contact your local police and Canada’s main credit reporting agencies: TransUnion Canada at tuc.ca (1 866 525 0262) and Equifax Canada at equifax.ca (1 866 779 6440).

4. Home Repair Rip-Offs

Imagine hearing that your furnace is leaking dangerous carbon monoxide into your home. Many times homeowners are told that they need to do an immediate replacement due to a crack in their heat exchanger or because the contractor has a gas-sniffer device which shows high carbon monoxide levels. This high pressure safety situation often ends up in unnecessary and costly repairs.

QUICK TIP: Do not make a decision to repair right away. Start with the Better Business Bureau and search for a company reliability report at bbb.org. Ask the person to provide a gas permit and a license with the BC Safety Authority and call to verify it at: 1 866 566 7233. Report misleading door-to-door sales practices to Consumer Protection BC. For complaints, contact Consumer Protection BC at 1 888 564 9963 or go to: consumerprotectionbc.ca

5. Small Business Loan and Supply Scams

Looking for credit to keep your business afloat can be tough, and that is why you need to be careful of ‘no credit’ or ‘bad credit’ loan offers. What looks like quick and easy credit can often end up resulting in huge financial loss and possibly ID theft. Other companies call and pretend to be a regular supplier looking to confirm your address in a directory or to ship office supplies. Once bills arrive for unwanted advertising or overpriced supplies, aggressive “collection” agents call with threats of legal action.

QUICK TIP: If you receive an unsolicited phone call, email, or letter from a lender, be suspicious. Avoid dealing with a person who guarantees a loan without checking your credit or reviewing your business plan. Also, beware of lenders who:

- cater to applicants with bad credit;

- pressure you to make a decision on the spot;

- request payment using a wire transfer service such as MoneyGram or Western Union.

Restrict the number of people in your company that can make purchase decisions and insist on a valid purchase order. To report a small business loan or supply fraud, please contact the Competition Bureau at: competitionbureau.gc.ca or 1 800 348 5358.

6. Free Government Money Schemes

Do you think you are entitled to free money from the Canadian government? Be suspicious of companies offering “free” advice on obtaining government grants. Often social networking sites and online ads will point to blogs that appear to be written by everyday people who are sharing the secret of how they received thousands of dollars in grants from the government to pay off their debt. In reality, this is a mass marketing scheme that does not provide an easy way for you to get a government grant. Rather, it costs you money to participate.

QUICK TIP: While it’s true that the Federal government does give out grant money every year, most grants are given to specific target groups, such as post-secondary researchers, or to specific industries. There is no reason to pay for software or guides when applying for government grants. Such information is already available for free on the Service Canada website servicecanada.gc.ca or by calling 1 800 O-Canada (1 800 622 6232). If you believe that someone is engaging in this type of fraudulent activity regarding government grants, please contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre (“PhoneBusters”) at phonebusters.com or 1 800 495 8501.

7. Business Opportunities

Your friend or a family member may have invited you to attend a presentation involving an investment opportunity. You don’t know anything about the company, and are desperate to hear that it is legit. These investments appear lucrative, but often involve more hype than substance. The promoter convinces investors that they can be part owners of an exciting investment portfolio, provided that they enlist new recruits. The promoter may even offer promising commissions in cash and bullion.


QUICK TIP: In reality, this could be an illegal pyramid scheme. The new capital brought on by new investors is keeping this imaginary investment afloat. Get the facts. If you attend an information session, be sure to collect business cards and promotional materials. You should also ask the promoters questions. For example:

- Who are the principals of the company?

- What are the average earnings of a “typical” participant – with half of the participants earning more than this amount and half of participants earning less?

- How much are the start-up costs?

Gather as much information as possible, before agreeing to anything. If you have reason to believe that someone is engaging in misleading advertising or deceptive marketing practices please contact the Competition Bureau at: competitionbureau.gc.ca or 1 800 348 5358. You should also consult the BC Securities Commission’s investright.org for information on how to select an advisor and what to look out for when choosing to invest.

8. Cashback Fraud

Cashback fraud usually begins when you advertise something for sale, such as a car. A buyer agrees to pay your asking price, but sends you a cheque or banker’s draft for a larger sum. The person asks you to bank his cheque and send him a money transfer for the difference. Sure enough, his or her cheque bounces a few days after your money transfer has left your account. You’re now out of pocket and looking for a bogus buyer who’s out-of-reach.

QUICK TIP: Criminal cashback works because cheques take longer to clear than electronic bank transfers. Do not ever wire money to a stranger. Do not allow greed to be your guide – be careful of offers higher than the asking price. If you believe that you are a victim of cashback fraud contact phonebusters.com or call 1 888 495 8501.

9. Hidden Cell Phone Charges

If you own a cell phone and see new and unexplained charges on your bill each month, it may be due to premium text message services. People complain that they did not realize they were signing up for this service when they agreed to play an online game or to take an IQ test. In the end they receive monthly billings which do not come from their cell phone service providers, but through other third-party companies.

QUICK TIP: Premium subscription services require customers to confirm their subscription twice to insure they are aware of the cost per message, the frequency of messages and the opt-out information. Read all the terms and conditions when signing up for a game and think twice if you are required to provide your cell phone number. To file a complaint, contact the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services at ccts-cprst.ca.


10. Mystery Jobs Scams

The scenario sounds too good to be true, and it is. You have been led to believe that you will be paid to mystery shop via a wire-transfer service. You receive a cheque, which you are told to deposit, keeping a small percentage of the money as your wage. You are then asked to send the back difference via a wire transfer and to complete a survey on the service you encounter. In the end, the cheque bounces and you lose all your money.

QUICK TIP: Be skeptical of mystery shopper ads in newspapers or online. In most cases these are bogus services requiring you to pay money upfront. Avoid companies that promise guaranteed jobs, and that sell directories of companies that provide mystery shoppers. To file a complaint contact the Competition Bureau at: competitionbureau.gc.ca or 1 800 348 5358. For mystery shopping work, go to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA) website at mysteryshop.org

Staying Safe Online: How To Protect Your Personal Information

Proposed New Law Would Let Police Snoop On What You Do Online

Is There A Grow-Op On Your Street?

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