Scam and Fraud Awareness
Modern scams sound real, look official, and move fast. This focus area builds the pause-and-verify habit that protects you before money or information ever leaves your hands.
What you'll learn
Framework for this focus area.
How AI supercharges scams
Why fake emails, texts, voices, and even video calls have gotten so convincing — and what still gives them away.
Bank, CRA, and delivery scams
Recognizing fake messages from 'your bank', 'CRA', 'Canada Post', or 'Service Canada' before you click or reply.
Phone and voice-clone fraud
The 'grandchild in trouble' call, the fake police call, and how cloned voices are being used — plus the family safe-word habit.
Romance and friendship scams
How these relationships escalate, the warning signs, and why 'never send money to someone you haven't met' still holds.
Investment and crypto scams
Guaranteed returns, urgency, secret opportunities — the patterns that show up again and again.
The pause-and-verify habit
A three-step routine: stop, verify through a channel you already trust, then act — never the other way around.
What we'll practice together
Hands-on activities.
- Walk through real (anonymized) scam texts and emails as a group
- Practice hanging up and calling a trusted number back
- Set up a family 'safe word' for emergency phone calls
- Run a scam-spotting quiz — spot the red flags together
You'll leave with
Tangible takeaways.
- A printed scam recognition checklist
- A short list of trusted numbers to call to verify (bank, family, CRA)
- A personal safe-word plan shared with a family member
- Confidence to say 'let me call you back' — and mean it
A quick note
If you think you've already been scammed, we can point you to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and local supports — but we don't recover money or provide legal advice.
Interested in joining or shaping this?
The Seniors Advisory Circle is being formed now.