Arrests of 70 in India linked to decrease in CRA phone scams, RCMP says

Damn, now how am I going to amuse myself at 15:10 every second afternoon of the week?

Hopefully they don't do this to those hilarious "microsoft" people. Without them I'd never know how the weather was in Calcutta.

I don't know about that. Canadians they'd get calls from their own gov't from people who can barely speak English and are merely annoyed.
But when it comes to computers, they actually get excited cuz, well, ya know 'those people' they know all about computers! They can't possibly be scamming them.

A most useful website here for phone stalkers/scammers/etc:

http://800notes.com/

When one gets through, and those CRA scammers called me about two months ago, this is the site I immediately go to. The user comments are a revelation. Saved me a lot of worry, like finding out that the ones that kept calling for a while "on behalf of Telus" really aren't from Telus as well as the aforementioned CRA nonsense.

Of course, if you talk directly to the scammer all you really have to say is "what's my file #/social insurance #/phone #" because if they're legit they should have at least two of those three on their own screen right in front of them. Either that or realize from the start that CRA or any other outfit isn't going to accept a payment in the form of a prepaid card from Steam video games, iTunes, or the Home Depot.

My sister was an evil auditor for CRA, she says they would never phone you for the reasons these scammers call you about. She might phone during an audit to clarify something but only after a first meeting. Other than that it's all through the mail.

And never through emails, just in case they pickup bugs someplace.

Oh, they will, if mail contact doesn't work. But they don't give details, and leave you a proper number where you can verify it's actually the CRA before talking to you.