Insurance regulators are again warning about an apparent scam involving bogus job offers from non-existent insurance companies.
The Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO) issued a warning Wednesday about a scam involving offers to work as a “pick-up and delivery agent” for Standard Sunlife Insurance and Dominion Life Insurance — two non-existent companies that are not licensed by FSCO, and have no connection to legitimate insurers with similar names, Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, Sun Life Insurance (Canada) Limited, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company and Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada.
It reports that, along with a job offer, individuals are asked to deposit a cheque into their bank account. “Consumers should be aware that a request to deposit a cheque prior to beginning employment is a common characteristic of a job scam,” it warns.
FSCO says that this latest scam appears to be linked to several other non-existent companies that FSCO and the Registered Insurance Brokers of Ontario recently published warnings about: United Insurance Brokers, Discount Insurance Brokers, Citizen Group, Trust Insurance Company, Progress Insurance and United Brokers Insurance. And, it notes that while the perpetrators of the scam are using different company names, they appear to be using the same phone numbers: 1-800-246-0716, 1-888-857-6699, 1-613-701-3097, and 1-226-799-9521.
It recommends that consumers should notify the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) if they are contacted by someone using any of these phone numbers. And, it says that anyone who has received a job offer from companies using the names in question forward the correspondence to the CAFC, too.