BC Girl Guides has issued a warning after several social media users complained about being scammed while trying to buy their popular mint chocolate cookies online.
Users in a Facebook group in Campbell River, BC, highlighted publications that showed users who said their daughters, supposedly part of the girls’ guides, needed to sell cookies and were willing to deliver them.
But once the users accepted an electronic transfer payment, sometimes for up to three or four boxes of cookies of $ 6, they would simply stop responding.
With the organization of voluntary girls guides that says that its cookie fund collectors are critical for their activities, the scams are leading to warnings on how to stay safely.
Cookies lovers will be warned, a new online scam is overloading and low delivery for a popular gift. As Yasmine Ghania reports, the scammers have passed through the guides of cookies in community forums and deceive people to pay for non -existent sweets.
“Let me know, we have not seen an attempt to scam like this before,” said Diamond Isinger, BC Girl Guides voluntary spokesman.
There were more than 12,600 girls registered in the organization in BC in 2024, according to the annual guide report. He sold five million cookies boxes in Canada last year.
“Chicas guide cookies feed everything we do as an organization,” Isinger said.
“They are the largest fund collector: food activities, supplies, badges, adult training and everything else.”
Isinger said there were a number of reliable ways of finding cookies in his community, from door -to -door sales to cabins established in public locations, some of which can be found on the Girl Guides website.
“Obviously, we are worried about seeing examples like this in nature, but we hope that it does not discourage any of our followers to support a really essential program for children, youth and adults,” Isinger said.
Police, expert issuance advice
CAMPBELL RIVER RCMP spokesperson const. Maury Tire said that the detachment had not yet received any official report of cookies scams, but were aware of social networks publications.
He said that it is the best practice not to pay or provide deposits for items while buying through sites such as Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, noting that Facebook profiles are often false.
“Investigate the page of the person you are buying,” Tire said in an email. “Often, new pages denote someone who has created a false or new page to operate a scam.”
Tire added that transactions must be made ideally in a public location, and any person who publishes in a public forum that seeks articles distrustful of the offers of scams.
Scams such as those involving guide cookies for girls are not without victims, says David Shipley, CEO of Beauleron Security.
“There is a cost for this type of fraud that goes beyond the lost amount for a cookie box here and there,” he told CBC News.
“It is the general loss of trust and impact on [the Girl Guides’] brand. And that is so deeply unfair to this organization. “
Montreal vendors on Facebook Marketplace say they face a new type of fraud. Deceptive buyers are trying to obtain access to the bank information of the vendors by sending a false electronic transfer link.
He advised anyone who was scammed to inform his local police or the Canadian Anti-Francud center, who received more than 100,000 fraud reports last year that involved more than $ 638 million in reported losses.
Shipley said the federal government has been lagging behind the issue of online security for a decade, and that groups such as girls’ guides suffered as a result.
He said OTTAWA should hold the big platforms, such as the Facebook parent company.
“We can expect more and we should demand more, from companies as a goal to stop these scams proliferating their platforms,” he said.
