Kamloops Christmas Market alerting prospective vendors about scam emails

“The only way you can kind of tell the difference between us and them is by looking at that email. Ours will only come from vendors@kamloopschristmasmarket.ca, whereas they make up different emails that are similar to ours but theirs is always a Gmail ending account.”

Olthuis said the Kamloops Sports Council noticed something was amiss in the spring with Ribfest, which it organized in August for the first time. He said these fraudulent emails “exploded” over the summer and fall as attention turned to the Christmas Market.

“With Ribfest, we don’t have a ton of vendors but at the Christmas Market, we have a massive number of vendors applying for the spots,” Olthuis said. “In the spring, we put that notice out of Ribfest and we did one in June for the Christmas Market but we know social media can only go so far.”

It’s unclear how many businesses have fallen victim to this scam or who the perpetrators are, but Olthuis said the police have been notified and he’s urging people to reach out. He’s also urging people to reach out to the Kamloops Sports Council if they’re unsure whether an email is legitimate.

“What I’ve been told by the RCMP is the only way we can catch the criminals is tracing where that money is going to, but I don’t know how easy that is,” Olthuis said. “It’s been reported to the federal anti-fraud department, as well.”

“We feel for the small businesses this has happened to. It’s very easy to fall into that scam when you look at those emails and I think the best thing now is educating the people that there is this scam out there, please do not fall for it.”

by Victor Kaisar

Kamloops Christmas Market alerting prospective vendors about scam emails

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