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Your computer may be your door to the world of online investing, but it's important to remember that it can also be a criminal's way in to your life, experts say.

There's a scam for every type of financial transaction imaginable, and the Internet's just a channel through which criminals operate easily, says Dean Buzza, an inspector at the Integrated Market Enforcement Teams of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa.

Unfortunately, it's usually only after they have been burned in a fraud scheme that investors contacts the authorities.

"Quite commonly our cases come down as a complaint from an investor after they try to contact people that they bought investments from," says Scott Boyle, assistant manager of investigations of the Ontario Security Commission, the Toronto-based regulator that oversees most investments sold in the province.

Mr. Boyle, part of a six-member unit at the OSC, says investors will call to describe the runaround they're getting from someone pretending to be an investment adviser, or worse, the fraudster has already run off with the investor's cash.

The crime may have begun with a telephone call or an e-mail, and often the perpetrator will mock up a website that gives the impression of legitimacy, Mr. Boyle explains.

Investment fraud, in which someone tries to extract cash from a victim for an investment that will pay out later, is but one of many types of fraud.

An increasingly common online scam involves so-called phishing, says Mr. Buzza.

When criminals go phishing (which derives from the phrase "password harvesting"), they send out spam, or unsolicited e-mail, to a pool of e-mail addresses generated by a computer, hoping to catch an unsuspecting investor. The e-mail's sending address looks legitimate, and the message directs the recipient to a website that looks impressively like the secure sign-in page for a bank or brokerage. There, the victim types in account numbers and passwords for verification; the criminal takes the details and can empty the victim's real account.

Mr. Buzza says it's often "extremely difficult" to see the difference between the hoax websites and legitimate ones.

Another growing fraud area is identity theft. Personal data sent via e-mail can be caught in transit, and cyber thieves need only apply the right software to sift through the reams of data.

Criminals will steal personal identifying information such as social insurance numbers, birth dates or driver's licence numbers. With those legitimate digits in hand, they can apply for loans or obtain government documents under assumed names.

Last year, PhoneBusters, which is run jointly by the Ontario Provincial Police and the RCMP, took complaints from about 7,800 people who said they were victims of identity theft. Reported losses were more than $16-million, but police say that represents only 5 per cent of the actual numbers.

That's still a drop in the bucket compared to the $166-billion that Canadians hold in online investing accounts, according to Investor Economics Inc., a Toronto-based industry consultant.

But if you want to keep your financial assets as safe as possible, here are some tips from the experts.

To safeguard yourself against online fraud, authorities advise taking care on several fronts: who you deal with; your personal information; computer security; and even your frame of mind.

When considering an Internet brokerage, especially a new one, Mr. Buzza recommends you do the due diligence on the brokerage's website security and its policies for recovering your money if its security is breached and details about your identity and financial holdings are stolen.

After you open the online account, monitor it regularly, as you would your bank or credit-card accounts. If you check the online account every week, at worst you'll be reporting a fraud six days after it happens, he notes.

"The investor needs the time, discipline and the knowledge to manage his or her own portfolio."

Your computer is your way out to the online world of investing, but it's also a criminal's way in to your personal financial details. Mr. Buzza recommends firewalls and software security. Wireless connections should also be password protected, he says.

As well, anti-spyware software can hunt for applications that you might inadvertently install on your computer. These spyware programs track your online activities without your knowledge and give criminals clues about your personal information.

Ben Soave, president of the Soave Strategy Group Inc., says investors need to take personal responsibility, too. They take unnecessary risks when they get greedy, he says. "As a result of that, they start dealing with people and sites that they don't know," says Mr. Soave, a former RCMP officer. "They start giving out information without protecting it."

If you're concerned about an investment opportunity offered to you by anyone, check SEDAR.com and EDGAR.com, two popular websites run by securities regulators in Canada and the United States. "They'll tell you whether you're dealing with a legitimate company," Mr. Buzza says.

Another area to safeguard is your credit standing; the Privacy Commission of Canada recommends that Canadians occasionally request copies of their credit reports, which are available free from either Equifax (http://www.equifax.ca) or TransUnion (http://www.transunion.ca).

There's no shortage of places for investors to turn if they're worried about fraud.

"If you're suspicious [about an investment pitch], all you have to do is call us and ask if the [adviser] is registered anywhere," says Mr. Boyle at the Ontario Securities Commission. "If they're not registered with us, you shouldn't be dealing with them."

Provincial regulators such as the OSC, the RCMP, or your local police force will take your call. Depending on the type and breadth of the crime, the RCMP's Integrated Market Enforcement Teams or its commercial crime unit may take on the case. "We look at who is best-positioned to proceed," Mr. Buzza says.

Suspected frauds can also be reported via a website run by the Reporting Economic Crime On-line site (http://www.recol.ca), which is run jointly by federal and provincial law enforcement agencies and regulators, along with private investigators. This site also lists and describes common types of online and investment fraud.