The number of Canadians who say they’re being targeted by digital fraud in online communities like dating platforms is above the global average, according to a new survey.
TransUnion released the results of a survey conducted near the end of 2025 on Wednesday, which asked nearly 13,000 participants from 18 countries, including about 1,000 Canadians, about their online experiences where they suspected they may have been targeted by digital fraud attempts.
When using online communities (like online dating and forums), the suspected rate of digital fraud attempts among Canadian participants was 11.9 per cent. That was up 63 per cent from a year earlier and higher than the global average of 8.1 per cent.
These types of digital attacks in online communities can be “relationship-driven fraud.”
“We see video gaming becoming more mainstream, things like social media and the online communities around those becoming more popular,” says Andrew Sigfrid, director of fraud analytics at TransUnion Canada.
“This popularity, this growth definitely then creates an incentive for fraudsters to enter these ecosystems to create relationship-driven fraud to not necessarily gain monetization right at that point in time, but to unpack that identity and build that relationship, build that trust to get the information they need to monetize it in the future.”
Unlike digital fraud attempts that may involve data breaches that hack websites and steal information, these community-based digital threats are occurring where threat actors engage directly with consumers to gain their trust.
This can be done through social media platforms, online gaming communities, forums and even dating apps and websites.
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“There’s lots of examples that have reached the news over the years of what’s called these romance scams, right? Where fraudulent individuals are portraying themselves as a potential partner, building that trust, building that relationship,” says Sigfrid.
“Sometimes it stops as quickly as, you know, ‘I need to buy a plane ticket, can you wire me a couple thousand dollars?’ … And other times it becomes so deeply involved that it leads to potential proposals or significant relationships that lead to them acquiring access to their life savings.”
Sigfrid says these sorts of online community-based threats are becoming even more complex with the use of generative AI and so-called “deep fakes,” where a threat actor may be using these technologies to make themselves look younger or different online in a way that may be a good match for those individuals and gain their trust.
“It is a complicated situation, especially for those who do not have necessarily the awareness and the education of what to look for and the vigilance of how to remediate it,” he says.
Sigfrid says the reason digital threat actors may be targeting Canadians more than some other countries is complex and based on two main components — our use of digital tools and platforms and our relative wealth, making us targets.
“We’re a very digitally engaged population. So we do a lot of our interactions with trustworthy institutions through online banking, e-commerce, all these different channels that we interact with on a daily basis just creates a lot of digital engagement and a lot of touch points that fraudsters could potentially intercept,” he says.
Sigfrid adds that the data shows Canadians are reporting higher rates of suspected digital fraud attempts, which doesn’t necessarily mean those users are more vulnerable.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that we are more vulnerable or there’s more exploits in order to actually access those funds in Canada. Certainly it happens, but it’s largely a fact of sort of the targeted approach rather than the vulnerability,” he says.
The survey data also highlights the most common ways threat actors have potentially stolen money from Canadians over the past year. Stolen credit cards or fraudulent charges were the most common method cited at 26 per cent compared to the global average of 19 per cent.
When it comes to staying vigilant with online and digital practices to protect sensitive personal and financial information, Canadians have been showing some improvements in other areas.
The TransUnion survey data showed notable declines in what it considers “traditionally high-volume” sectors, with suspected digital fraud volume compared to a year earlier dropping 73 per cent for online retail, 62 per cent in logistics and 32 per cent in financial services.
Sigfrid says this means Canadians have been showing increased awareness and vigilance in protecting themselves through some of these more traditional channels, including using common practices with passwords and avoiding the use of bad passwords.
But when it comes to these digital threat actors on community-based channels preying on consumers, including Canadians, it ultimately “boils down to awareness.”
“Consumers remaining vigilant and doing basic research to see what’s happening in the market and how you can better protect yourselves,” he says.
“Probably the safest and also widely known one is just don’t give your information out when there’s any sort of suspicion around it, or just not at all, period.”
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