Canada’s top scam is home improvement: Better Business Bureau

By Charlie Carey and Shilpa Downton

Posted March 6, 2023 3:14 pm.

More than 1,200 people in Canada reported scams to the Better Business Bureau last year, and according to the group, the top riskiest scam was right at their door step.

Home improvement was found to be the top scam, with the BBB reporting an average loss of $1,900 for folks who were targeted out of their money.

The scam climbed up the charts in 2022, as the year prior it was ranked fourth.

According to Wes Lafortune with the Better Business Bureau, it’s become common practice for door-to-door solicitors offering quick, low-cost repairs, and not delivering.

“Somebody’s showing up just on the spot, they’ve noticed that somebody’s about to start a renovation and they say, ‘Hey, I know how to do this work, I can help you out.’ And they sound pretty convincing and the person hires them. They give them some advanced money to buy materials or whatever and then all of a sudden they disappear,” he said.

He says like any major investment, people need to do their homework and shop around.

“They might appear to be legitimate and even have websites and so on. Sometimes their intentions are even going to be legitimate but they don’t have the skills and the background to pull off the work, so they disappear. That’s the common theme, they disappear with some or all of your cash,” he said.

For folks who reported being scammed to the BBB, the overall median loss was about $300 — a 20 per cent increase from 2021 — while the percentage of folks who reported losing money after being targeted by a scam increased almost two per cent in 2022.

“The top three riskiest scams reported in Canada shifted slightly in 2022,” BBB said in its report. “Reports of home improvement scams increased in 2022; reported median dollar loss for this scam type rose 187.4% from $661 CAD in 2021 to $1,900 CAD.”

Stan Rector, the co-owner of My Home Handyman in Calgary, says with inflation hitting many hard, it’s not surprising that people are looking for a deal.

“It’s usually with customers going with the lowest bid and then sometimes the contractor will ask for an above-average deposit — sometimes, I’ve heard, up to 75 per cent — and then those contractors will vanish and the customer is out at a 75 per cent deposit,” Rector told CityNews.

Both Rector and Lafortune add if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Cryptocurrency and advance fee loan scams followed home improvement scams closely, while investment scams gave way to the biggest losses for consumers — $5,500.

In 2022, those aged between 35 and 44 reported the highest median loss to scams — about $500. The report also found that while women were exposed to scams at almost double the rate of men, they were only marginally more susceptible to lose money to fraudsters.

“The median dollar loss reported by both men and women increased in 2022. Median dollar loss reported by men ($453) was substantially higher than by women ($249) in 2022,” the BBB report said.

To combat scams, the BBB says you shouldn’t believe everything you read or see; you should use secure, traceable transactions; and should never share personally identifiable information with someone who’s contacted you unsolicited.

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