Canada’s Crypto Scams Target Young Adults, Losses Up 40%

Crypto currency background with various of shiny silver and golden physical cryptocurrencies symbol coins, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, zcash, ripple. (eamesBot/ShutterStock)

Losses to cryptocurrency scams have risen nationwide, but British Columbia has had a particularly large spike with scams almost tripling in one year.

B.C. residents lost a combined $24 million in crypto scams in 2022, up from $8.5 million in 2021, reported the B.C. RCMP on March 22.

“Scammers are using the popularity and complexity of crypto assets to target vulnerable investors, particularly on social media,” the RCMP said in a joint release with the B.C. Securities Commission (BCSC) and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

Young adults are more susceptible to the scams, according to recent BCSC research, which shows they are more likely to turn to social media for investing advice and more likely to take a speculative and risky approach to investing.

BCSC says 18 percent of young adult investors it surveyed held only crypto investments.

Canada-wide, crypto scams rose 40 percent from 2021 to 2020. Total losses were $530 million in 2022. Less than 10 percent of scam victims report fraud, however, so numbers are likely much higher, says the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

Characteristics of a crypto scam to watch out for are: any ‘guaranteed’ returns on investment, heavy use of jargon meant to confuse the victim and make the scammer seem knowledgeable, pressure to buy, and unsolicited offers.

Many frauds involve individuals or firms who aren’t registered to buy or sell investiments; AreTheyRegistered.ca is the place to check if a salesperson is registered.

Using registered crypto trading platforms can also help protect against fraud. Registered platforms are listed on the Canadian Securities Administrators website.