Saint John police say their fraud prevention initiative has been a resounding success.
Coffee with a Cop was launched to help educate seniors in the city about fraud prevention.
Detective Const. John Wright said they have noticed an increase in seniors being targetted since the pandemic.
“Mostly because they are not tech savvy, they still come from that generation where they want to believe people are honest,” Wright told council’s public safety committee last month.
Wright referenced stats from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, which found Canadians of all ages lost $567 million to fraud in 2023.
The officer, who investigates fraud and financial-related crimes, said there are various types of fraud making the rounds.
“Lately there’s been an uptick in what we call the emergency scam. That’s where they get a call saying, ‘This is so-and-so, your grandson has been arrested, we need you to send us $1,000,'” said Wright.
Others include scammers claiming to be from the Canada Revenue Agency, romance scams, and gift card scams.
While the initiative was initially geared toward seniors, the police force had a request from YMCA Newcomer Connection to expand it to multiple age groups, including newcomers.
“[They wanted us] to have talks with their English as a Second Language program and explain to them the pitfalls of some of these frauds that they could possibly come in contact with as new residents of Canada,” said Wright.
Around 325 people have attended the 10 sessions hosted throughout the city since the initiative launched in February.
Wright said they are collaborating with the Grand Bay-Westfied RCMP detachment to potentially extend the program to their community.
