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Market joined forces with world-renowned scambusters to create our personal fraud-fighting name centre
Watch these scambusters work with Market journalists to confront fraudsters, intercept reside calls and save folks from shedding their cash.
It could actually typically appear as if cellphone and on-line scammers are past accountability. Typically working from overseas, the place criminality is both tolerated or ignored, the organized prison teams behind the scams that annoy and frustrate so many people have additionally reaped billions in stolen positive aspects from a few of society’s most weak.
However there’s a small military of fine guys combating again.
Three of the world’s hottest “scambusters” — who’ve a mixed following of greater than 10 million throughout their social media platforms — joined forces with CBC’s Market to create a fraud-fighting centre, utilizing their distinctive abilities to infiltrate prison networks abroad, reroute 62 energetic rip-off name centres again to their operation and intercept fraudulent calls to cease scammers from accessing cash from Canadian victims. Read more
Her grandson’s voice stated he was underneath arrest. This senior was virtually scammed with suspected AI voice cloning
The voice was convincing.
The caller recognized himself as police, however then one other voice got here on the road.
“He goes, ‘Hello Grandma. Yeah, I acquired in hassle right here. The police say they want some cash to launch me or they are going to maintain me in jail,'” Kevin Crawford recalled.
His mom, Marilyn, had simply been woke up by the decision. And the Ontario senior was sure it was her grandson, Ian, on the cellphone.
She was instructed he’d been arrested for stealing a automotive and that he wanted $9,000 despatched to police for his launch.
Solely, it wasn’t Ian. It was a rip-off cellphone name so convincing that Kevin and Marilyn surprise if fraudsters used synthetic intelligence to clone Ian’s voice.
And Marilyn says that regardless that the voice sounded barely totally different, it satisfied her sufficient that she agreed to pay up.
“I used to be anxious to get the cash out; I would do something for my grandchildren,” she stated of the dialog that befell in 2021.
It is identified broadly because the “emergency” or “grandparent” rip-off: the caller claims to be the sufferer’s grandchild and says they’re in the course of a disaster, normally saying {that a} crime has been dedicated — and so they want cash. They instruct the particular person on the cellphone to inform nobody.
And it has been a profitable ploy; Canadians reported shedding almost $3 million to this rip-off in 2024, in response to figures from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. Read more
- You’ll be able to watch the complete, one-hour season finale, “Rip-off Stoppers: The Final Showdown,” on YouTube and CBC Gem.
Hudson’s Bay hopes to avoid wasting 6 shops, which may defend a few of its 9,364 jobs

After per week spent searching for a lifeline, Hudson’s Bay says it has discovered a solution to maintain a half-dozen shops open — for now.
Canada’s oldest firm is again in courtroom right this moment to hunt permission from an Ontario choose to liquidate all however six shops beginning Monday.
The six shops Hudson’s Bay needs to avoid wasting from the liquidation sale embrace its flagship location on Yonge Avenue in Toronto, in addition to a retailer within the metropolis’s Yorkdale Mall and one other farther north in Hillcrest Mall in Richmond Hill, Ont. The remaining three are in Montreal, the Carrefour Laval mall and Pointe-Claire, Que.
The six shops solely have till April 4, in any other case they are going to be added to the liquidation.
The corporate didn’t say how deep the reductions on the remaining shops shall be in the course of the liquidation interval, which might run till June 15. It’s promising to vacate these places by June 30.
The transfer stands to avoid wasting a number of the 9,364 jobs that might be misplaced if the corporate liquidated all of its shops, which was the plan till Hudson’s Bay stated Friday that gross sales had exceeded its expectations, permitting it to maintain six places alive.
“If an answer will be discovered, there is a chance to drag extra shops out of the liquidation. But when a restructuring answer shouldn’t be discovered in a short time, [the six] shall be added to the liquidation sale,” Hudson’s Bay lawyer Ashley Taylor stated in courtroom on Friday.
The proposal marks a glimmer of hope for the corporate, which filed for creditor safety on March 7. The submitting confirmed the corporate was going through vital monetary challenges and was desperately in want of money to maintain making even fundamental funds that maintain the enterprise. Read more
‘Purchase Canadian’ Reddit put up turns into secret ingredient to assist save Ontario condiment enterprise

Evidently the key ingredient to assist save Shenul Williams’s small Pickering, Ont., condiment enterprise was a wholesome sprint of Canadian patriotism.
With gross sales down, and fears that she might have to shut store, she says a posting on a “Purchase Canadian” Reddit thread has considerably boosted her orders.
“I am actually blown away with the love and assist from Canadians by means of these unsure instances,” stated an emotional Williams in an interview with CBC Information. “I used to be nervous that I used to be going to lose my enterprise.”
Williams owns and operates Aki’s Tremendous Meals, which manufactures and sells Indo-African condiments together with pickles, chutneys and barbecue marinades. She took over the enterprise from her dad and mom greater than 30 years in the past, and has expanded it to some extent the place her merchandise are featured in shops throughout Canada, together with a number of the bigger grocery chains.
Aki’s has had its ups and downs, however it was hit significantly onerous by COVID-19 after many grocers and eating places that stocked her merchandise went out of enterprise.
These previous few months have been significantly dire, she stated. Nonetheless, earlier this week, her daughter, Aliza Welch, determined to put up about her mother’s enterprise on a “Purchase Canadian” thread on Reddit. Read more
What else is happening?
Grandparent scams steal millions from seniors. Organized crime made Montreal a hotbed for them
Rip-off networks utilizing name centres to focus on seniors have reappeared in Montreal just lately.
Is Tim Hortons Canadian?
Patriotic fervour amid Trump’s tariff and annexation threats has stoked debate on-line.
Alleged grandparent scammers lived in luxury. Their victims lost their savings and peace of mind
Victims reside with the impression of the scams for the remainder of their lives, choose says.
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