Montreal – Statistics Canada, which never asked Canadians before 2019 if they were victims of fraud, finds that this type of crime goes far beyond what police know about it: In the 12 months leading up to the survey, more people reported being victims of at least one fraud than any other type of crime.

The federal agency is releasing a series of data Monday after asking questions for the first time about fraud experienced by respondents to the 2019 General Social Survey (GSS) on Canadian safety.

Thus we learn that four years ago the number of victims of fraud, at 2.5 million people (7.8% of the population aged 15 and over), exceeded the number of victims of all violent crimes combined, namely sexual assault, robbery and assault, which affected nearly 1.4 million victims (4.3% of the population).

Fraud at the 1st level of crime

In fact, fraud ranks first, ahead of theft of personal property, home theft, violent crime, vandalism, burglary, and auto theft.

If we look beyond the last 12 months prior to the survey, one in six (17% or 5.45 million people over the age of 15) said they had been a victim of fraud in the last five years. According to the police, this form of crime is on the rise. These show that the number of fraud cases has almost doubled in ten years, from just over 87,000 cases in 2011 to over 168,000 in 2021.

The shame of admitting it

However, Statistics Canada data lifts the veil on the shame of being “caught” by scammers by showing that police are only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Only one in ten (11%) of those who reported being victims of ESG fraud reported to the police. “The rate of fraud reports to the police is approaching that of sexual assaults (6%),” writes the federal authority.

Saskatchewan (17%) and Quebec (15%) are the most likely places where victims contact the police.

However, we find that victims are more concerned with protecting their money than opening an investigation, as two-thirds (65%) of fraud victims have reported it to their financial institution.

$16 billion in losses

Notably, most of the victims suffered no loss (38%) or a loss of less than $250 (16%). One in four victims lost around $1,000, but 3% lost at least $10,000 and 0.5% left amounts greater than $100,000. Collectively, the losses for all fraud victims exceed $16 billion in five years.

Looking at the data by region, we see that Alberta had the highest proportion of people who were victims of fraud (22%), while people in Nunavut (8.6%), the Atlantic Provinces, and Quebec were the least likely to be victims of fraud, with rates ranging from 13% to 14%.

Wealthy and educated victims

Who are the main victims? Unsurprisingly, high income is associated with an increased risk of being a victim of scams. 13% of those earning less than $20,000 were victims of fraud in the five years prior to the survey, compared to 24% of those earning $120,000 or more.

Additionally, people with a college degree were about 2.5 times more likely to report being a victim of fraud than those without a college degree.

Aborigines and Francophones are less affected

In contrast, the prevalence of fraud among First Nations (11%) and Inuit (6%) was lower than among non-Aboriginal people (17%). “These disparities may be partly explained by the socioeconomic marginalization of Aboriginal people,” suggests Statistics Canada.

Likewise, Francophones were less likely to be victims of fraud than their Anglophones (13% vs. 18%). The federal authority points out that this gap is constant even when income or education differences are taken into account. Statistics Canada offers no explanation for this situation, but it can hardly be ruled out that the number of attempted frauds in English is higher than in Molière’s language.

Personal information: the Achilles tendon

Not surprisingly, police data shows that most frauds are perpetrated using computers (hacking, phishing, etc.) and that this trend is increasing. In second place is credit card fraud, although declining, while third is securities or financial fraud, which is on the rise.

In almost all cases (90%) of the reported fraud cases, the scammers stole personal data. Although nearly half of the victims did not know how their personal information was obtained, those who did say their credit or debit card was cloned or duplicated; that access to one of their accounts (online account, email account) has been hacked; that you provided the information yourself; or that the information was obtained as a result of a database breach or data leak.