When I write these articles each week, I reflect on information that has been passed to me from others I have conversations with throughout the week and other times they are triggered by situations going on around me. Recently, I have been bombarded with calls from the Canada Border Agency telling me that there is a parcel in my name that has been intercepted by them, it contains illegal contents and there’s an arrest warrant out for me. I am then to press “1” on my phone to be directed to the authorities. Now I have never pressed “1” so I don’t know what would happen from there, but I can only imagine that they want me to divulge personal information or somehow want money to clear my name. Either way, I am on to them and I know it’s a scam. Prior to these calls, I was on the hotlist for being informed that my social insurance number had been stolen and they wanted me to press “1” to speak to the authorities…again, I never pressed “1” to find out what would happen but feel I would be re-routed to India or Costa Rica or another country overseas where the underground criminal network of scammers can be found. A few years back, I received multiple calls regarding the CRA and how I owed them money. I never fell for this scam either however, I do know some people that did. I only found out about it after the fact, or I probably could have saved them from getting into a situation where they gave up a lot of money. For vulnerable people, it’ difficult for them to know especially when the people on the other end are so convincing that they pull on our human nature of not wanting to be in trouble with the law or government.
Some people I have talked to about this, just can’t understand how people fall for these scams. I can – have you ever been driving and keeping it under the speed limit and then you see a police car? The automatic reaction is to panic, even though you aren’t breaking any laws, its inherent and a natural reaction to feel that sense of panic until you realize you aren’t doing anything wrong and then the anxiety or stress is relieved. It’s this same feeling for some when they receive a call saying that they have committed a criminal offense. People usually don’t want to be in trouble.
There seems to be pattern of my activity that triggers the scam call. For example, I have recently travelled and coming back into Canada, I was in contact with the Canada Border Agency, and I also stayed in hotels while I was on vacation. This has now triggered me to be on a list to now receive robocalls telling me I have been selected for a trip by Hilton hotels and to press “1” to claim my prize. In the last few years, these robocalls and scams have gotten so bad that some people have given up their cell phone while others I’ve talked to have a blocked number on their phone so anytime they call anybody, it can’t be used to be on the list the criminals seem to get a hold of. I don’t feel the CRTC, and government has done enough to stop criminal activity and keep Canadians secure. How is it that people fall into this trap of being scammed?
Paul Seager, wrote for the University of Central Lancashire that says that most people assume that the victims have specific traits – perhaps they are elderly or less well educated? Or maybe the victims are particularly vulnerable – recently bereaved or socially isolated perhaps? Seager says, “that figures do suggest that one in five over 65 say that they have been targeted by email scammers. But it’s also likely that nobody is immune to fraud and sometimes people simply fall for scams due to the psychological techniques employed by fraudsters. For example, if someone does something for us, we feel obliged to do something for them. Scammers use this type of enforced indebtedness to elicit an unwise action from their target. Fraudsters take advantage of this by getting us to commit to little steps that then escalate in nature. Let’s not forge the FOMO (fear of missing out) effect where they lead you to believe you will miss out. When our freedom to be able to do something is threatened, we tend to react quickly to ensure that we don’t miss out.” These are just a few examples of how people can get scammed by these con artists.
Last month, Canada’s telecommunications regulator announced it was time to mandate the telecom companies by forcing them to implement new technology aimed at bringing Canadians some relief from spoof and fraudulent phones calls. Telecom companies have until November 30th to update their networks to meet the technical standard that gives telecom providers the ability to validate a caller’s identity. The head of the CRTC, Ian Scott said that unwanted calls, or robocalls, have become such a widespread problem that they are contributing to an “erosion of confidence in the telecommunications system”. Scott pointed out that, “something in the order of 25 per cent or more than 25 per cent of all the calls made on mobile networks are robocalls. it’s a huge problem, and it’s going to require tremendous effort by regulators and co-operation by the industry to address”. The program is called SHAKEN/STIR – Secure Telephony Information Revisited, a technical standard that provides a means for carriers to authenticate the identity of callers. The other component known as “SHAKEN”, is short for “signature-based handling of asserted information using tokens,” and refers to the framework for implementing the standard in IP based service providers’ networks. By the end of the month, Canadian carriers must update their networks to enable the implementation of the technology. This will give Canadians the ability to determine which calls are legitimate and worth answering and which need to be treated with caution. It’s a red light/green light system for call recipients. Each call will see a caller ID that pops up with either a red light or green light beside the name, indicating whether the caller’s identity has been verified by the carrier or not. Carriers are also mandated to provide a service that allows subscribers with the ability to filter calls or to implement a call-blocking system.
Scott says, “Bell Canada has gone so far as to apply to the CRTC to permanently block calls that are confirmed as fraudulent on the company’s network.” He furthers talks about, “Bell has been testing this technology over the past two years and has blocked more than 1.1 billion calls between July 2020 and October 2021.” Scott believes that the cost to protect their customers should be at the expense of the carrier and not the customer, but this will remain to be seen as we navigate these new waters. In my experience, the carriers never do much to engage in support of customers where there is an opportunity to make a profit. I guess this shows the little faith I have in carriers.
The first cell phone I had was what they call a bag phone that was large and plugged into the cigarette lighter of a vehicle and you would remove it when you got out of the car but had to tote around this bag that was somewhere in the vicinity of 1-2 feet large. Then came the flip phone and on to what we have now with Iphone’s and smart phones. The size and ease to use cellular phones has improved and become efficient over the years but so has the multibillion-dollar criminal industry. According to CNBC, consumers lost 56 billion to phone scams over the past year alone. So, who are these scammers?
According to Pindrop.com, 64% of scammers originate in a country other than the one they are calling. These criminals attack from international destinations because it complicates the legal process. Even if they can trace a call back its complicated routing, international laws and extradition processes are overwhelming. Modern spoofing technology makes its easy for attackers to disguise their phone numbers with tools that change the ANI and international calls appear on Caller ID as local calls from legitimate customers. This is why the CRTC feel they need to force the telecom companies to put in measures to block these calls and/or make them known as legitimate or not.
There is no other crime, that affects so many people from almost all ages, backgrounds and geographical locations. What really bothers me the most is, how did we get here – where we live in a world that has taken the trust of people and everything, they have worked all their life for. People are vulnerable and others have learnt to tap into that and abuse it. I get very disheartened when I think about this and sometimes it’s hard to believe this is our reality. I can only hope that the government can get this sorted out soon as the way it is going, the criminals seem to be winning out. Maybe the more we discuss with our loved ones and especially the elderly perhaps next time they won’t answer the phone when it’s a number they don’t know and put themselves at risk of being scammed. I’d like to think that there’s a way for the good guys to win for a change and maybe this new regulation will help with this, it all remains to be seen…