Stacy Yanchuk Oleksy has no-nonsense advice on what to do after getting scammed.
“You go have a big cry,” said the CEO of Money Mentors, a non-profit credit counselling agency. “And I’m half-joking about that, because you feel bad.”
Canadians lost $351 million to fraud in the first six months of the year, on track to roughly match last year’s $704 million in losses, according to the Better Business Bureau. That’s a lot of tears.
With scamming now entrenched as a lucrative form of organized crime worldwide, experts say those who fall victim should follow several concrete steps to limit the fallout — including emotional damage — whether they’re down a few hundred dollars or a few hundred thousand.
The first thing to do is contact the company or bank that issued the transaction to report the loss and ask them to reverse it. But be warned, the odds of success are small except with credit card payments.
“I had my credit card number lifted, they gave me the money back,” said Mark Kalinowski, a recently retired credit counsellor.
Cheques, email money transfers and wire transfers as well as cryptocurrency and gift card payments are much harder to recoup.
“They’re likely not going to get money back,” said Yanchuk Oleksy.
When reaching out to the transaction firm — not the recipient — make sure to use the contact information listed on the company’s official website or the back of the bank or credit card, rather than any site or phone number provided by the suspected scammers.
The next step is to call police on a non-emergency line to report the crime and then file a report with the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
For cryptocurrency transactions, law enforcement may require the transaction identification, crypto type — Bitcoin or Tether, for example — and web addresses as well as messages to and from the fraudster.
Victims need to be on their guard going forward, since they’re more likely to be targeted a second time, experts said. Criminals might pose as financial institutions or lawyers trying to help after the fact via messages or calls asking for account information or passwords.
“They will circle back and keep preying on you,” said Kalinowski.
“You need to be paranoid about your money,” said Yanchuk Oleksy. “If my bank calls me on my cellphone … hang up the phone, call back the bank with the number on the card and speak to a representative that way.”
Staying alert means diligently checking bank statements — in the case of possible stolen identity or a compromised account — and credit reports. For the latter, users can update them with a consumer statement noting the scam.
“You have to then become sort of super-hyper-vigilant,” said Kalinowski. “Reach out to a trusted person in your life to consult about future money transfers.”
That can be a friend or loved one, or a bank employee or credit counsellor, he said.
“When you’re going to pass on big amounts of money, if you have no one else, reach out to a non-profit organization. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.”
If losses from a scam result in missed credit card or bill payments, for example, the Credit Counselling Society and other non-profits can help you make a plan to rebuild your credit.
Kalinowski says victims need to work to overcome any shame they may feel about the incident.
“Don’t feel bad that you got caught in a scam. We’re all going to feel bad,” he said.
“I’ve seen CEOs — guys that run million-dollar companies — I’ve seen nurses, teachers, real estate agents fall for them, because it plays on emotion.”
Investment scams have evolved by leaps and bounds from the blatant ploys and spam pitches of decades past, morphing into phoney cryptocurrency websites, false bank correspondence and impersonations of loved ones, including phone calls that draw on voice-cloning technology.
Abetted by artificial intelligence and crypto hype, investment fraud marks a rising threat to Canadians’ financial security and demands a range of protection measures.
Investment and cryptocurrency scams — where someone tries to convince you to invest funds based on false information — remained the riskiest scam type in 2025, according to a report from the Better Business Bureau.
Preying on loneliness and distrust of institutions, the category saw median losses at about $5,000 per incident. More than three-quarters of people targeted said they lost money.
To block such scams, the Better Business Bureau recommends enabling multi-factor authentication and alerts for your transactions and to set up auto-deposits for e-transfers so you can ignore any text with a link to deposit one.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2026.
