Canada moved its fraud reporting to a single national portal, and the part most people get wrong is what happens after. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is a repository, not an investigator. The investigation, if there is one, belongs to your local police — and that only happens if you also report it there.
Call whoever moved the money
Your bank, credit union, card issuer, or the wire service or payment app you used. Do it before anything else, and do it by phone. A transfer that has not been collected can sometimes still be stopped; one that has been is a matter for the receiving institution, which your bank has to contact.
There is no Canadian equivalent of a statutory scam-refund right, and no national hotline that recovers money. What your card network or your own bank offers depends on how you paid and on their policy, so ask them directly what protection applies and get the answer in writing.
Report Cybercrime and Fraud
The national portal is reportcyberandfraud.canada.ca, run jointly by the RCMP and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. It replaced the older Fraud Reporting System, and some government pages still use the old name. You can also call the CAFC on 1-888-495-8501, Monday to Friday, 10:00 to 16:45 Eastern.
You can report anonymously. The centre estimates that fewer than five per cent of fraud victims report at all, which is why patterns take so long to surface and why your report is worth more than it feels.
And then your local police
The CAFC says it plainly: “It’s the role of your local police to investigate.” File with them if you lost money, and keep the file number — insurers and banks ask for it. Call 911 instead if you are in immediate danger.
Texts, spam and the CRTC
Forward a scam text to 7726, free on Canadian carriers; it goes to the carrier and improves its filtering. Report spam email and texts to the Spam Reporting Centre at fightspam.gc.ca, which feeds anti-spam enforcement against senders. Neither reaches the police.
Misleading advertising and deceptive marketing belong with the Competition Bureau. Investment fraud belongs with your provincial securities regulator, not a federal one — that is a common wrong turn. Tax impersonation calls can be checked with the Canada Revenue Agency on 1-800-959-8281.
If your identity is in play
Place a fraud alert with both credit bureaus, Equifax Canada and TransUnion Canada, and ask for your credit report. Replacing documents is provincial: your birth certificate, driver’s licence and health card come from the province or territory that issued them. Social Insurance Number misuse goes to Service Canada.
What to have ready
The Competition Bureau’s own checklist is the best one published in Canada. The name the person used and what they wanted. The phone number. Screenshots of the key pages, including the payment page and terms. The exact web address, copy-pasted rather than retyped. Receipts, cancelled cheques, emails, texts and chat logs. Keep the originals safe; they may be evidence later.
The scam that follows the scam
The CAFC warns that fraudsters impersonate the CAFC itself, claiming to be investigating your case or offering to get your money back from an earlier one. No agency does that, and no agency charges a fee to return money. Treat any such call as the second attempt on you, because that is what it is.
One more party nobody mentions
The page itself. It runs on a hosting provider and a domain sold by a registrar, and those two can take it down far faster than any complaint process. A short abuse report with the exact address, a screenshot and one line about what the page does is the single most effective message you can send.
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