A Guelph, Ont., man is out thousands of dollars after police say he sent money online to someone he thought was a childhood friend.

The man began to talk to the person he thought was an old friend online in a chat forum, Guelph Police Service spokesperson Scott Tracey says.

“There was another person in the group that this person came to believe he knew from his childhood in China,” Tracey said.

They started out talking in a public forum in July, then moved their conversation to a private chat in September.

“The victim started making transfers to this person, believing that he was sending the transfers for the purposes of buying cryptocurrency,” Tracey said. “Between mid-September and the end of November, the victim transferred approximately $188,000 US to this person that he thought he knew.”

The Guelph man contacted police earlier this week when his friend asked him to pay a an additional 30 per cent verification fee.

“At that point he he feared that he was being scammed,” Tracey said.

Scammers change tactics to defeat skepticism

Canadians are losing millions of dollars in cryptocurrency fraud schemes. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, Canadians lost over $94 million in crypto payments, from Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 of last year. That’s compared to $124 million in losses in all of 2023.

Tracey says people need to always ask questions when they’re dealing with someone online and cryptocurrency comes up in conversation.

“The scams that are going around are always being altered to try to defeat peoples skepticism,” Tracey said.

“I think we have to adjust our response and encourage the public to adjust their response to meet the the new techniques being employed by the scammers.”

Deceptive social media advertisements

South Bruce OPP say since October of 2024, they received several reports of people losing $190,000 collectively.

“The majority of investment scam reports involve residents deciding to invest in cryptocurrency after seeing deceptive advertisements through social media platforms,” OPP said in a media release.

“Victims funnel their money through illegitimate crypto currency investment firms, then are unable to retrieve their money.”

Police say the chances of recouping the funds when the scammer is in an overseas country is low.

In the Guelph case, Tracey says the victim believes the person he was talking to was based overseas somewhere in Asia.

“It’s very difficult for us to obviously investigate that and the victim  was told that it’s almost impossible to recoup the lost funds,” he said.

“That’s why we try to be as proactive as we can in terms of telling people that this is happening and encouraging them not to fall victim and to be aware of some of the warning signs.”

Anyone who suspects they have been the victim of cyber crime or fraud should report it to their local police and to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre’s online reporting system or by phone at 1-888-495-8501.

Police suggest that a report should be filed even if there is an interaction but no financial loss.