Just the thing to enliven our morning and interrupt our treasured leisurely breakfast. The unwanted insistence of a telephone ringing, early enough to prod one to think that somewhere, something must be wrong and someone is desperately attempting to reach us. But no, my husband picked up the receiver and just listened. For the longest time. With me itching to know what was happening.

When he replaced the receiver, I leaped upon him; 'what was that about'? A mechanized voice, he said, claiming to be from the Canada Revenue Agency, advising him that we are in arrears on our taxes, there is significant money owing, and an auditor is set to examine our taxation records and move to press criminal charges. Should we be interested in taking action to ensure the police are not called in, a telephone number was given to enable him to speak to an 'agent' with whom something useful could be worked out.

I'd read about this scam a month or so again; the newspaper article had been missed by my husband, who was both bemused and amused by the call and its tenor. It's more than obvious that the obtuse and the naive could be taken in by the message. I looked up the fraud on line and found more than enough warning about it, from newspaper reportage to the website of the CRA itself, warning people to be aware and not to believe that the Agency was in the habit of contacting people in this manner. They give the number of the National Fraud Center where it can be reported.

Evidently this is a scam that is old enough to have grown a grey beard, one that is resurrected sporadically and usually at this time of year, coinciding with the month leading up to tax returns. One newspaper article cited a man having been bilked out of $35,000, which is what happened to the poor gullible creature who spoke to the 'agent', who assured him that all would be forgiven if he forwarded a bank draft to the 'CRA' address he would give him.

Evidently, the fraudsters didn't think they had sufficiently warned us of our delicate state between complacency and being charged with criminal fraud and sent to prison for tax evasion, since a second, similar call came through an hour later.

I just wonder if the fraudsters are trading off the American IRS, with its fearful reputation among citizens of the  United States, reasoning that the CRA is held in the same dread as is the Internal Revenue Service; different country, different culture. But they obviously do score some lucrative successes in Canada.