MoneyMinding Monitor

A short while ago, the income tax department called me – not exactly a call I was excited to get, but none-the-less I proceeded because it wasn’t a significant issue. On the other hand, however, their phone policies are the reason for this writing.

When I think about the way the call went, it’s rather unbelievable really – so much so that part of me doesn’t want to share the story for fear someone will use the information unscrupulously. But alas, I hope there are more people that will be on the alert by reading this message that it might help stop some unscrupulous fraudsters.

The agent called and gave me her first name and said she was calling from Canada Revenue Agency. As soon as I said “hello”, she immediately said she needed to confirm that she was indeed speaking to me and proceeded to ask me to give her personal information. What? They called me. Shouldn’t they give me some information and ask me to fill in the blanks or to give me something basic then ask me for more details? It started by her asking for my complete address, then my birth date and my social insurance number (Canadian Government ID number).

Wait a minute – “If you’re the government calling me, aren’t you supposed to have this information?” How about if you read off what you know and ask me to fill in the blanks like the name of my husband or something similar.

I was completely taken aback and suspicious so requested to call them back so I could be sure that it was really the government calling. It was – as I found out after working my way through the maze of voice mail options and taking 20 minutes to do so – just to have to explain to a completely different person that someone from their organization had called me about something, which I had no idea what. I was completely inconvenienced by having to prove to myself that the phone call I had received was legitimate! I was not happy – can you tell? Here we are, the government is telling us to be careful, yet they themselves are not setting a good example – what’s with that?!

This entire experience left me completely dumbfounded and hence the reason for sharing the story with others….I guess the moral is to be on the alert – it’s sad, but a reality that we need to double check our sources before giving out our personal information – even when the person sounds official. And, perhaps maybe someone should tell the government that this is a very poor example and that they need to revisit their phone policy immediately.