Over half of Canadians report behaviours that increase fraud vulnerability: survey

TORONTO – A new survey suggests the risk of fraud could be on the rise with nearly one-quarter of respondents saying they or a family member have been the victim of financial scams in the past year.

The poll, commissioned by TD and conducted by Leger, found 46 per cent of respondents encounter scams or fraud attempts weekly or even daily, and more than half reported behaviours that could make them more vulnerable.

That includes using public Wi-Fi to access personal or financial accounts, opening email attachments from unknown senders, clicking links in texts or emails before verifying the source and downloading apps or software from unfamiliar sites.

Still, 89 per cent said they feel confident in their ability to spot fraud.

Jane Arnett, cybersecurity evangelist for Check Point, said Canadians have been bombarded with similar messages for decades on how to spot scams, such as looking for spelling and grammar errors or bad graphics, website URLs and copy-and-paste jobs. 

Now, many Canadians are familiar with those signs and feel confident in their detection abilities, she said.

“But it’s just simply no longer the case,” Arnett said. “Those spelling errors and grammar errors aren’t there. The bad graphics don’t exist.”

Kevin Wicks, group manager of fraud education at TD agrees. Fraudsters are using artificial intelligence to develop new scams faster, making it harder for Canadians to spot them, he said. 

“In the past, it could take these scammers months or weeks to build a website or an email or a text message to potentially phish someone and obtain their personal or financial information,” he said. “Now with AI, they can do that so quickly.”

It’s easier for scammers to generate text messages, emails and voice calls within a minute and still sound convincing, he said. 

“That is what has actually driven that huge dramatic rise in reported fraud in Canada.”

Arnett said there’s also an element of apathy among many Canadians, who feel there’s no point in learning about fraud prevention because they happen anyway. 

The survey suggests 41 per cent never consult resources or educate themselves on fraud prevention.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre estimates $704 million was lost to scams in 2025, up significantly from about $165 million in 2020.

Younger Canadians stood out in their proactive approach and fraud education, while also helping protect their loved ones from getting scammed. 

However, 65 per cent of younger Canadians admit their behaviours made them more vulnerable to scams — above the national average of 52 per cent.

A false sense of digital literacy among tech-savvy Gen-Z makes them susceptible to fraud, Wicks said.

For example, he said younger Canadians are increasingly falling for cryptocurrency scams, and it all ties back to fraudsters’ use of AI.

Arnett said convenience, exhaustion and sometimes apathy often lead people to forego safe online practices, such as accessing online banking on safe networks.

“You’ve got to check that thing in your bank account at some point, but you’ve been running around, and you have the kids in tow, and you’re in line somewhere and you have two minutes to do it,” she said.

“You’re going to jump on your Wi-Fi and log into your bank and do that thing, but that’s a really risky behaviour.”

Wicks said families need to have conversations about fraud at home. People also need to pause and verify requests independently to check if texts or calls are legitimate and avoid sharing personal or financial information, especially when connected to public Wi-Fi at a hotel or an airport, he said.

“Confidence is helpful when it comes to fraud and scams,” Wicks said. “But it just can’t replace those safe habits … which means the best defence is to pause before acting.”

TD says the online survey, which ran from Dec. 18 to Jan. 5, used a nationally representative sample of more than 1,500 Canadian adults and 262 Canadian business owners, with results weighted by age, gender, and region to match the population according to census data.

The Canadian Research Insights Council, an industry organization that promotes polling standards, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2026.