Glossary
In Abuse and Family Violence, Elder abuse, Debt and Consumer Rights, Health and Disability
Personal information is any facts about you that identify you as a unique individual. Examples of personal information are your name, contact information, social insurance number, birth date, and address. It also includes facts about your race, religion, beliefs, age, sex, marital status, health or criminal history, education, and more.
Phishing is when an identity thief pretends to be your bank, your employer, a business, or somebody else, and tries to trick you into giving them your personal information. An identity thief may use phone calls, emails, regular mail, or fake websites to get your information.
Postpaid services are cellphone services that you pay for after you use the service. You pay for the amount of service that you used since your last payment. Most monthly cellphone contracts are postpaid. If you have a monthly plan that you pay for after you use the services, you are using postpaid services.
Some prepaid services also have monthly contracts.
A preauthorized debit is when you give permission to your bank to automatically pay a person or business out of your account on a certain date. For example, you might pay your phone bill or car loan through a preauthorized debit. A preauthorized debit is sometimes called a preauthorized payment. It can also be used to refer to post-dated cheques you give someone to cash on a future date.
Prepaid services are cellphone services that you pay for before you use the service. They include prepaid cards or accounts for a fixed amount of service or a fixed cost. Some contracts also cover prepaid services.
This is different from a postpaid service, where you pay for your usage at the end of the month.
Public records are documents or information that anyone can search for and find.
For example, when you file for bankruptcy, this information becomes a “public record”. Consumer reporting agencies, like Equifax and TransUnion, get this information. And anyone else can pay a small fee and do a search to find bankruptcy records.
A refurbished phone or device is one that the company has fixed up to re-sell. Usually the device was owned by someone else and given back to the company.
A Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) is a special account you can use to save money for your child’s university, college, or trade school education.
You might get some tax benefits by saving money in this type of account. There are also rules you must follow to put money in the account.
A Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) is a special account you can use to save money for your retirement. It is sometimes also called an RSP or Retirement Savings Plan.
You might get some tax benefits by saving money in this type of account. There are also rules you must follow to put money in the account.
In Abuse and Family Violence, Elder abuse, Debt and Consumer Rights, Scams
Scams and frauds are crimes where people lie, cheat, use someone else’s personal information, or break the law to get money or something for themselves.
Common examples are identity theft, credit card fraud, email and online fraud, and phone and door-to-door sales scams.