Capital One Canada has joined forces with SeniorBusters to raise awareness and help educate and protect seniors from fraud.

According to the most recent data from SeniorBusters, thousands of elderly Canadians are victimized by financial fraud each year.

Capital One’s financial support to SeniorBusters is helping them purchase needed equipment to enable expanded outreach efforts. SeniorBusters is the volunteer component of PhoneBusters, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre jointly run by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Competition Bureau Canada. SeniorBusters, which is staffed by retired seniors who volunteer to help other seniors, uses a hands-on approach and direct community outreach.

“We see that the fraudsters prey on the fact that seniors are often lonely, lacking family support, and are sometimes additionally vulnerable as a result of Alzheimer’s or similarly impairing illnesses,” says Sgt. Debbie Bell, an Ontario Provincial Police Officer with SeniorBusters. “The fact that our volunteers are themselves seniors helps break down barriers when communicating with victims. This approach generally makes seniors more comfortable with reporting the crime and it facilitates raising awareness of the many scams out there.”

Fraudsters are increasingly innovative, employing a broad range of scams to rip-off seniors. Identity theft topped the list in 2007 with a reported $6,421,952 lost, followed by the “Nigerian Letter” scam (where a fictitious high-ranking person in a foreign country tries to enlist help moving a large sum of money out of their country into the victim’s bank account) which claimed $4,935,030, investment scams, which accounted for an additional $3,553,320 lost, and scams offering phony prizes, which generated losses of $3,506,289.

“The number of scams designed to take advantage of consumers, particularly seniors, is increasing,” adds Girardo. “Seniors and others can help protect themselves from financial fraud by carefully protecting their personal information including credit card, bank account and Social Insurance Numbers.”

Based in Toronto, Capital One has offered Canadian consumers a range of MasterCard credit cards since 1996. Capital One Canada is a division of Capital One Bank, a subsidiary of Capital One Financial Corporation of McLean, Virginia.