Toronto Police news release..
Thursday, February 21, 2013, 9 p.m.,
Twitter's #Fraudchat on how to detect and avoid "romance" scams
Broadcast time: 08:22
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Financial Crimes Unit
416−808−7300
Since November 2012, the TPS Financial Crimes Unit has partnered with the Financial
Service Commission of Ontario to educate the public about financial crimes and fraud through
the use of social media.
Every Thursday evening, from 9 p.m., to 10 p.m., EST, these two agencies host an online
one−hour forum on Twitter called “#Fraudchat.” This program seeks to educate and exchange
ideas with the public about financial crimes and fraud. The moderators for this program are
Kristen Rose, (@kristenjrose), Senior Communications Officer of the Financial Services
Commission of Ontario, and Detective Sergeant Cameron Field of the Financial Crimes Unit
(@cfieldFCU).
Tonight’s program will cover "romance" scams and how to detect and avoid them. Romance
scams victimize people in two ways. They suffer a financial loss often in the thousands of
dollars. Once the fraud is detected, victims experience significant emotional harm.
To follow this program, log on to Twitter and type in #Fraudchat and follow along. Other
applications like “Tweet Chat.com” are also helpful in following and contributing to the
program.
During Fraud Prevention Month 2013, in March, #Fraudchat will cover the following topics:
February 28: Fraud and scams targeting seniors
March 7: Home−renovations scams
March 14: Auto− insurance fraud
March 21: Life−insurance fraud
March 28: Staged motor−vehicle−accident frauds
Please join us every Thursday evening on #Fraudchat and learn about frauds and scams that
target us.
To learn more about #fraudchat, please visit Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/fraudchat.
For more information on this program, and the Fraud Prevention Month strategy of the
Toronto Police Service, please contact Detective Sergeant Cameron Field at 416−808−7300"