This story was originally titled "Protect Your Parents from Fraud" in the May 2008 issue. Subscribe to Canadian Living today and never miss an issue!

Snorkelling in the sea, shimmying under a limbo stick and sipping cocktails in the glow of a perfect purple sunset, Rebecca had no way of knowing she was about to lose everything. Dreams of riches had lured the 50-something Ottawa woman and her husband to the Caribbean island of Tobago, where a group of Canadian real estate "experts" was giving slick seminars on overseas investing. They didn't realize they were caught up in a wild, winding drama, one that would devastate their lives.

The saga started when Rebecca saw a newspaper ad for a course on investing in real estate. She took the class, and then another seminar. Seduced by smooth talk and big promises, she sank her life savings – about $80,000 – into the company giving the courses.

The cash was supposed to go into foreign investments, including a tourist development on the Tobago coast. Rebecca was told to expect a fat interest cheque every month. But in the year after the seminars and the splashy Caribbean trip, she didn't see a cent or hear a word from the company. The people who had taken her money couldn't be found. Her $80,000 was gone – for good.

Infuriated, she tracked down other Canadians who had been bilked of big bucks by the same company, but most were too ashamed or afraid to go to the police. One victim, Rebecca says, killed himself. Another woman's husband left her. "I said to my husband, 'You haven't had a heart attack, we still have a roof over our heads, our marriage is still intact. Count ourselves lucky. Let’s just walk,'" Rebecca says. "So we did."

The vulnerable ones
Rebecca admits her story reads like a far-fetched movie script. But sadly for Canada's top fraud fighters, there's nothing shocking anymore about people, especially seniors, being smacked with supersized financial scams. "Some people have lost their entire life savings," says Cpl. Louis Robertson. "The most I have seen so far is $700,000. The lady was 84 years old." Robertson is an RCMP officer in charge of the criminal intelligence analysis unit with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre, also known as PhoneBusters. The Centre is flooded with more than 146,000 calls every year from consumers concerned about scams. Robertson estimates Canadians lost between $475- and $500-million to fraud in 2006.

Scams hurtle their way toward us every day in the form of letters, e-mails, phone calls and knocks at the door. And many of the people taking the biggest hits are those who can least afford it: The nanny and grampy getting by on a pension. The lonely widow living alone. Our moms and dads.

"I'm very annoyed" says Molly McCarthy, a 77-year-old widow living in a big old house overlooking the fishing boats in St. Martin’s, N.B. She once went to the police after someone in the United States started skimming money off her credit card for a subscription she had never ordered. She has also had her share of suppertime calls and letters from bogus charities trying to charm her into channelling change their way. "These are full-time professional and persistent crooks, and we, the public, are only part-time amateurs as we try to protect ourselves; it's not a level playing field."

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