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 The Financial Crimes Unit (FCU) is using social media to share ideas and strengthen partnerships.
The Financial Crimes Unit (FCU) is using social media to share ideas and strengthen partnerships.
Beginning late last Nov., the FCU and the Financial Service Commission of Ontario (FSCO) began hosting a one-hour online twitter chat -- #Fraudchat – to educate the public about financial crimes and fraud.
“The response so far has been overwhelming,” said Det. Sgt. Cameron Field.
“We have received positive feedback from around the country and the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Africa. It’s really turned into a nice platform to educate people about fraud prevention.”
Field said the idea was conceived during a meeting, four months ago, with FSCO senior communications officer Kristen Rose.
“We were looking at ways that we could collaborate more on social media to promote fraud prevention and fraud awareness and one of the ideas that we came up with was a weekly information program on Twitter,” said Field.
“Part of the plan is to pull in experts, community groups and other agencies that have a specific knowledge of the topic we are dealing with and the public can log on to Twitter or tweet-chat over some platform like that and actually follow the program and ask the panel questions.”
The program is aired on Thursdays from 9-10 p.m. and individuals can follow it by logging on to Twitter and typing in #Fraudchat. Other applications like “www.tweetchat.com” are also helpful in following and contributing to the program.
The Feb. 28 program deals with fraud and scams targeting seniors, the March 7 program will address home renovation scams and auto insurance fraud will be the focus of the March 14 program. The March 21 and 28 programs will address life insurance and staged motor vehicle accident frauds respectively.
Field said social media offers the opportunity to enhance and amplify his unit’s fraud prevention and awareness messages.
“One of the things about fraud is that it’s one of the few crime indicators constantly going up,” he said.
“If all crime goes down, fraud goes down the least. If crime goes up, we are definitely going up, sometimes by double digits, so there is a real need to increase our education of the public.”
National Fraud Prevention Month is celebrated in March.
Follow Kristen Rose at @kristenjrose |
Community Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) is made up of community volunteers and police service representatives from the 51 Division’s geographic area. The membership of the CPLC reflects the unique and diverse population served by 51 Division. Participants on committees include community representatives from racial, cultural or linguistic groups, social agencies, businesses, tenant associations, schools, places of worship, gender, youth and socio-economic status.
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