Police-reported fraud has increased for the seventh year in a row, according to Statistics Canada.
New numbers released by the federal agency Monday show a 12 per cent increase nationally in 2018.
In New Brunswick, the rate of police-reported fraud increased by 24 per cent to 3,779 cases.
“In some ways, those numbers are good,” said Rick Hancox, CEO of the Financial and Consumer Services Commission of New Brunswick (FCNB).
“That may sound a little surprising but our experience and our research tells us that about 95 per cent of frauds go unreported. … Part of our campaign has been trying fraud awareness and to encourage people to report.”
New 🚨👮: Police-reported #crime in 🇨🇦, as measured by both the crime rate and the Crime Severity Index (CSI), increased for the fourth consecutive year in 2018—rising 2%. For more info, check out our new article: https://t.co/Uz1zmRGBCi pic.twitter.com/r5FHTVreSQ
— Statistics Canada (@StatCan_eng) July 22, 2019
According to StatsCan, some police services link the increases to greater use of online reporting options.
Despite more people reporting fraud, Hancox said some people may still choose not to due to embarrassment.
“The sales psychology and the pressure tactics are so intense that people sort of lose that common sense in the heat of the moment and then afterwards you think ‘oh my goodness, I’m not going to tell anybody about that,'” he said.
Hancox said when they encourage people to report fraud, they also want to hear from people who have simply been approached so they can track which frauds are making the rounds.
Awareness is the best prevention, he said, which is why they have a section on their website dedicated to frauds and scams.
“We have an encyclopedia of frauds and scams so that you get a sense of what are all the different ones that we know of that have gone around or are going around and how to recognize them,” Hancox said.
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