Scam Texts in Canada: The Senior's Guide to CRA, Canada Post, Bank and 'Grandchild' Texts

Here is the sentence that protects you from an entire family of Canadian scams: if a text says it is the CRA, it isn't — the Canada Revenue Agency never starts a conversation by text message. That is not our opinion; it is the CRA's own published rule. Add its three companions — Canada Post never asks for a fee by text, your bank never needs you to call a number that arrived inside a text, and a grandchild in trouble can always wait ten minutes for a check — and you are ahead of nearly every trap being sent to Canadian phones this week.

Scam texts work because they arrive at the worst moments. The parcel text lands while you really are waiting for something your daughter ordered for you. The CRA text lands when money is tight and a refund would help. The "bank account locked" text lands on a quiet evening and steals it. And the cruellest one — a message claiming to be your grandchild, in trouble, on a borrowed phone — lands straight on the strongest instinct any of us has: help family first, ask questions later. This guide respects that instinct. It simply gives it a sixty-second pause to work inside.

You will learn the 60-second check that comes first, the one rule that exposes every fake CRA text, how the Canada Post redelivery-fee trick works and why the real sender numbers give it away, why you must never call a number that arrived inside a bank text, how the 'grandchild in trouble' text plays out and the ten-minute habit that defeats it, exactly what to do in the first 10 minutes if you have already tapped a link, and how to forward a scam text to 7726 and block the number on both iPhone and Android. Every reporting number you could need is gathered in one table near the end, and there is a one-page checklist to print and keep on the fridge.

The 60-Second Check, Explained: Why It Never Fails

The check works because it refuses to play the scammer's game on the scammer's field. A scam text controls everything inside itself: the name at the top, the wording, the link, the phone number, even the thread it appears in — because in Canada, as in most countries, the sender name on a text can be faked, and a fake can land inside the same conversation as genuine messages from your bank or Canada Post. What a scam text cannot control is the real banking app on your home screen, the real Canada Post website you reach by typing the address yourself, the CRA agent who answers when you dial 1-800-959-8281, or your grandchild's real voice on the number you have called for years. So the entire defence is one habit: leave the message, and check the claim somewhere the message cannot reach.

Notice what every row shares: the check costs nothing, takes under a minute, and works even if the fake is a perfect copy. Scammers invest in making the message convincing. They cannot invest in making your card, your app, or your family's voices lie to you. That is why this one habit — not sharp eyes, not technical knowledge — is the whole defence, and why officials from the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre to your own bank give the same advice in different words: slow down, and verify through a door you open yourself.

CRA Scam Texts: The One Rule That Exposes Every Fake

The tax scam is the easiest Canadian scam to defeat, because the rule has no exceptions worth worrying about: the Canada Revenue Agency does not use text messages — or WhatsApp, or Facebook Messenger — to start a conversation about your taxes, your benefits, or your account. Not about a refund. Not about a debt. Not about a payment that "failed". The one genuine CRA text that exists is a sign-in code, sent only while you are logging in to your own CRA account yourself — and that code never arrives with a link, a threat, or a request for payment. So the moment a "CRA" text asks you to tap, pay, confirm, or call, you already know what it is.

What if the worry will not settle — what if you genuinely might owe tax, or a refund really is due? Then check it the way the CRA itself asks you to: sign in to your CRA account the normal way, or call the CRA yourself on 1-800-959-8281 and ask. That one call replaces a week of worrying, and a genuine CRA matter will still be there when you make it. If you spotted the fake in time, your report still matters: forward the text to 7726 and report it to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre on 1-888-495-8501 — the Centre tracks these campaigns nationally, and tax-season waves are exactly what your report helps them warn about. And if a message claimed to be from some other branch of government — a benefit, a pension, a border fee — the same rule covers all of it: the Government of Canada does not ask you to update personal or banking details by tapping a link in a text.

Canada Post Parcel Texts: The Redelivery-Fee Trick

If there is one scam text nearly every Canadian has received, it is the parcel one. It arrives while you genuinely are waiting for something — a birthday gift for a grandchild, medication, an order your son placed for you — and it says the delivery failed, the address was incomplete, or a small fee is owed before the parcel can be released. It asks you to tap a link and fix it. Here is the fact that defeats it, straight from Canada Post's own guidance: Canada Post never sends a text or email asking for your card or banking details, your password, or a payment to release or track a delivery. A text asking for money for a parcel is a scam — even if the fee is tiny. In fact, the tiny fee is the trick: nobody questions two dollars, and the scammers are not really after the two dollars. They are after the card number you type to pay it.

The safe check takes one minute: close the text, open your browser, and type canadapost.ca yourself. Enter the tracking number from the store's confirmation email or your receipt — never a number or link supplied by the text. If the parcel is real, its true status is there; if nothing matches, nothing was ever wrong. The same routine covers the couriers whose names get borrowed for the same trick — Purolator, UPS, FedEx — because the defence never changes: no courier collects a surprise fee through a text link. Forward the fake to 7726, then delete it and block the number. Our dedicated guide to recognising a fake delivery text gives you five more signs to check when a parcel message looks almost right, and if the text arrives as a phone call instead, our who called me guide runs the same defence for voices.

Bank and Interac Texts: Never Call the Number in the Message

The bank text is the parcel trick wearing a suit. It says your account has been locked, a purchase looks suspicious, or a payment needs your approval — and it helpfully provides a number to call, or a link to tap, "to fix it now". The number belongs to the scammers. They answer in a calm, professional voice, sometimes with hold music, and walk you — patiently, kindly — through moving your money somewhere "safe", which means somewhere gone. The Interac version runs the con in the opposite direction: good news instead of bad. "A deposit is waiting for you — tap to accept it." The link opens a page that copies your bank's sign-in screen almost perfectly, and the password you type there is collected within seconds.

The defence costs nothing and never changes: never call a number that arrived inside a text, and never sign in through a link that arrived inside a text. Turn your bank card over and call the number printed on the back. Open your bank's official app from your home screen — a real deposit, a real lock, a real suspicious purchase will all be visible inside it, because a bank keeps its truths in its own house. A genuine bank fraud team will confirm in a minute whether anything is wrong, and real banks actively praise customers who hang up and call back this way; it is exactly what they train their own staff to recommend. One more version to know: the follow-up call where a "bank investigator" asks you to read out a code that just arrived on your phone. Banks do send sign-in codes — but a code you read to another person is a key handed over. The rule that covers every version: the bank reaches you through doors you open. You never reach the bank through a door a message opened.

The 'Grandchild in Trouble' Text: Canada's Cruellest Scam

This one does not want your password. It wants your love, in a hurry. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has been warning about a new version of the old grandparent scam, and it now begins as a text or a social-media message rather than a call: a message from an unfamiliar number claims to be your grandchild — or another family member — whose phone has been broken, lost, or dropped in water. "This is my new number." Then comes the favour: money for a replacement phone, a bill that cannot wait, a repair. The call version adds darker pressure — a "lawyer" or "police officer" on the line, bail money needed today, and a gag order: you must tell no one, not even the family. Sometimes cash is to be picked up by a courier, or mailed. Every element — the broken phone, the new number, the urgency, the secrecy — is engineered to stop you doing the one thing that defeats it: checking.

The defence is a phone call — to the number you have always had. Call your grandchild on the number saved in your phone. If they do not answer, call their parent, their sibling, another family member. A real emergency survives a ten-minute check completely intact; a scam cannot. And build the shield before you ever need it: agree on a family safe word — one word or phrase a real family member can give on request that no scammer could guess. Our family safe-word guide walks through choosing one in about five minutes, and it matters more every year, because voices can now be copied from a few seconds of audio. If money was requested, report the attempt to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre on 1-888-495-8501 even if you sent nothing — your report is how the next grandmother in your town gets warned.

Already Tapped the Link? Your First 10 Minutes

Take a breath first. These texts reach millions of Canadian phones and are written by people who do this as a profession; tapping one does not make you careless — it makes you normal. What protects you now is order and speed. Work through this list top to bottom:

1. If you entered bank or card details, or a password: call your bank now. Use the number on the back of your card. Tell them exactly what happened and what you typed. They can freeze the card, change the password, and watch the account — this call matters more than everything below it combined.
2. If you sent money: ask the bank to stop or recall it. E-transfers and card payments can sometimes be pulled back when the call comes within the hour. Ask plainly, and write down the name of the person you spoke to and the time.
3. If you gave personal details — Social Insurance Number, date of birth, address, account numbers: place a fraud alert. Call Equifax Canada on 1-866-779-6440 and TransUnion on 1-866-525-0262 and ask each for a fraud alert on your file; it means lenders must check harder before opening anything in your name. If your SIN was given, tell Service Canada as well.
4. Report it properly: tell your local police if money was lost, and report the whole story to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre on 1-888-495-8501 (or through its online Fraud Reporting System). Then forward the original text to 7726 and block the number.
5. Tell someone in the family today. Not as a confession — as a warning. The same text is being sent in waves, and your call may be the reason your sister, your neighbour, or your own grandchild stops in time.

And if you tapped the link but typed nothing at all? You are in much better shape — most of these pages only steal what you enter. Close the page, do not go back, forward the text to 7726, and block the sender. If the page downloaded anything or your phone starts behaving strangely, that is worth a visit to your carrier's store, where staff will check it with you free of charge.

Forward It to 7726, Then Block the Number (Step by Step)

Forwarding is the single most useful thing you can do with a scam text — it is how your phone company learns which campaigns are running and blocks them for other people. It is free, it works on Canadian carriers, and it takes less time than making tea. Here is the routine for both kinds of phone; the fuller walking guides are linked below.

Forwarding a text on iPhone

1. Open the scam text. Press and hold the message bubble until a menu appears.
2. Tap More…, then tap the curved forward arrow at the bottom right.
3. In the "To" field, type 7726 and tap send. Your carrier will usually reply asking for the number the scam came from — that reply is genuine; type the number and send it back.
4. Now block the sender: open the conversation, tap the number or name at the very top, tap info, then Block this Caller. Finally, delete the conversation.

Forwarding a text on Android (Samsung and most others)

1. Open the scam text. Press and hold the message until it is selected or a menu appears.
2. Tap the three dots (or the arrow) and choose Forward.
3. Type 7726 as the recipient and send. If your carrier replies asking for the sender's number, type it and send it back — that reply is genuine.
4. Block the sender: back in the conversation, tap the three dots, choose Details or Block, and confirm. Then delete the conversation. Our step-by-step guide to blocking spam texts on Android and the companion guide to stopping spam texts on iPhone walk through every screen with pictures.

Every Reporting Number in One Place

Bookmark this page, or print this section and keep it with the checklist. Every contact below was checked against the official source on the date at the top of this guide.

One warning about finding numbers: always take phone numbers from this table, from an official website you reached by typing its address yourself, or from your own paperwork. Never take a "help" number from inside a suspicious message, and never from a page that pops up claiming your device is infected — scammers run fake helplines too. Our official safety resources directory keeps the trusted starting points in one list.

The Fridge Checklist: Stop. Check. Forward. Block.

Print this page (your browser's print button keeps this section on one sheet) and keep it by the phone or on the fridge. Six lines are all most scam texts ever meet:

For a fuller wall-chart version — twelve checks covering texts, calls, emails and money requests — keep our senior scam checklist beside this one; together they cover every doorway a scammer uses.

For Family Members: Helping a Parent in Another City

If you are the daughter in Toronto with a dad in Halifax, the son in Calgary whose mum forwards him every suspicious text "just to check" — this section is yours. You cannot stand between your parent and every message, but you can set up three things on one visit that do most of the guarding for you. First, the settings: turn on the phone's spam filtering and "Filter Unknown Senders" so the worst of it lands quietly out of sight — the two guides linked above walk through it brand by brand. Second, the anchors: put the genuine banking app and the Canada Post app on their home screen, side by side, and show them the only route they will ever need — "if a text worries you, close it and open the app with your own finger". A route practised twice, together, sticks. Third, the family habits: agree on the safe word, and on the rule that no money question is ever settled by a text — not a "locked account", not a "grandchild in trouble", nothing. Any of those means a call to a number the family already knows, or a call to you first.

Say all of it as a game you are playing together against the scammers, never as a lecture about being careful; parents who feel trusted keep showing you what arrived, and that flow of "look what I got today" messages is the best alarm system a family can own. If your parent reads French more comfortably — as many Quebec seniors do — our French guide to the same Canadian scams, les arnaques par texto pour les aînés du Québec, covers this ground in their language, with Quebec's own reporting routes. And when a suspicious text does arrive at your parent's phone, use it as the friendly drill: run the 60-second check together, forward to 7726 together, block together. That is how a parent becomes the person warning their friends at the legion hall — which, in the end, is how these campaigns die.

The 10-second version: if a text says it is the CRA, it isn't; if it asks for a delivery fee, it isn't Canada Post; if it gives you a number to call about your bank account, don't. Leave the message; check inside the real app.

The 3-minute routine: forward the text to 7726, block the number, delete it, and tell someone in the family.

The golden rule: never do what a text tells you. Do what you decide, through doors you open — the official app, the address you type, the number on your card, the voice you have known for years.