Vancouver Police have launched #NANAsays, a new campaign aimed at raising awareness of online fraud with millennials.

Sophisticated fraudsters are using more and more convincing tactics to fool even the most skeptical consumers, but when it comes to online fraud, the traditional assumption that seniors are most often victimized doesn’t hold true. The generation that grew up with the internet has become the largest group of people defrauded online.

From January 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, millennials, aged 19 through 35, represented almost half of all victims of cybercrime in Vancouver.

Of the reported cybercrimes during the same time period, 51% were fraud related, with losses totaling over $1 million.

The number of reported cybercrimes has grown 10-fold over the 10-year period of 2006 to 2016, from 86 in 2006 to 921 in 2016, almost half of which were fraud-related.

The #NANAsays campaign plays on the unexpected, with fraud-aware Nana texting advice to her millennial grandchild. Examples of common types of fraud and tips to recognize and help prevent them will be shared in a series of online advertisements.

The five most common online scams are:

  • Sale of goods, such as event tickets on sites like Craigslist
  • Residential fraud, where people pay deposits on apartments and find out the apartment is occupied and not available for rent
  • Job opportunity fraud, like “work from home” schemes involving the processing of payments, which is actually money laundering
  • CRA scam, where people receive phone calls advising them to pay the taxes they owe or they will be arrested
  • Phishing emails or texts, which are unsolicited and seeking confirmation of personal information, like passwords

The online advertising campaign has been generously funded by the Vancouver Police Foundation.

More information.