Beyond the Con

From those annoying phone scams to email hacks, bank fraud to catfishing... it can sometimes feel like everywhere you turn, there's a con just waiting to happen. But being taken advantage of like this can cut way deeper than your pocket book. This week, Piya explores how people recover after it happens to them.

Here are the stories from this week's episode...

'There was a sense of numbness': Woman finds tragic sense of triumph after unmasking her identity thief

Axton Betz-Hamilton's parents were dogged by identity theft when she was a child. At 19, she moved away from home to attend university, hoping to get away from it all. But her bubble was burst when she found out someone had been racking up mountains of debt her own name for years. She speaks with Piya about her mission to track down who was behind it all... and the shocking discovery she made when she finally solved the mystery.

Woman who says her new flame turned out to be a fraud on a mission to help others avoid romance scam

Andrea Speranza was enjoying a new relationship with a man who seemed to share her values of helping kids and giving back to the community. But after she loaned him money for medication and urgent travel... she says he ghosted her. Andrea tells Piya how that led her to discover his trail of past fraud, and what she's doing to personally heal and help others avoid finding themselves in a similar situation.

David Common unpacks who's behind those annoying phone scams, and whether there's any end in sight

Attempted phone scams have become a daily headache for many Canadians. And CBC's David Common has been trying to get to the bottom of them, travelling all the way to India to track down the alleged perpetrators. He speaks with Piya about what he's discovered about how these schemes work, why people fall for them, and whether there's any hope of shutting them down.