Police in Surrey, B.C., have offered a public safety alert following numerous reports of scammers making fraudulent calls from a police phone number and claiming to be officers.
Victims are being contacted via a number that appears to come from the Surrey Police Service’s non-emergency line, 604-599-0502, and are being asked to provide their personal information, said the department in a statement Friday.
In some cases, the caller fabricates an officer’s name and badge number in an attempt to gain the victim’s trust.
Anyone who is contacted by the noted number is reminded by police to not provide any personal information over the phone and not send money or respond to any links sent by the caller. Instead, victims should hang up immediately and verify details about the call by phoning the SPS’s non-emergency number, 604 599-0502.
The warning comes just weeks after police in Delta put out a similar call, advising the public to be wary of scammers falsely claiming to represent either the Delta Police Department, or an anti-fraud agency.
The calls, which would insist the victim’s phone number was linked to a police investigation, occurred regularly and throughout both Canada and the U.S. A statement released by Delta police earlier this month said, on that same day, the department had received over 40 reports from victims.
