Employees in the North Peace targeted by scam

The local RCMP are educating the public in regard to a recent scam in Fort St. John which has been targeting employees.

According to the RCMP, an employee at a store in Fort St. John was recently targeted by a fraudster on July 31, who was pretending to be their boss in order to convince the victim to deposit money for a delivery.

The employee was convinced to pay for the delivery of a package according to the release, and deposited almost $1000 dollars into a Bitcoin ATM.

The money was converted into Bitcoin and deposited into the suspects Crypto Wallet before the victim realized they had in fact sent money to a fraudster.

“Legitimate businesses are not going to ask you to pay for items or services with cryptocurrencies. Once your money is converted into Bitcoin, for example, and sent to a fraudster’s Crypto Wallet, there’s an extremely low chance of tracing the money and next to no chance of recovering it,” said Constable Christiaan Dreyer, Media Relations Officer with the Fort St. John RCMP.

There have been several incidents taking place in the North throughout the previous months, and the RCMP are reminding the public to protect themselves from these scams and provided some helpful tips.

No legitimate bank, business, or government agency will request you to deposit funds into a cryptocurrency machine and scammers often prey on the lack of public knowledge regarding cryptocurrencies.

Stay safe.