Competition Bureau warning of scam calls posing as its officials

The Competition Bureau is warning Canadians of scam calls from individuals claiming they are with the bureau.

A notice on the bureau’s website reads that its media relations phone number (819-994-5945) “is being used to leave threatening messages in consumers’ voicemail box.”

“In fact, fraudsters are masking their phone number with ours by displaying it on consumers’ caller ID. If you receive such a message, delete it and do not engage with the caller. We are doing everything we can to resolve this issue,” the bureau said.

An increasing number of Canadians have reported that they’re receiving a lot of spam calls. Spam callers have become more sophisticated in their spoofing techniques and have even successfully defrauded some Canadians.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently introduced a mandate that requires Canadian carriers to implement universal call blocking to prevent spam calls.

Some spam callers have defrauded Canadians by falsely posing as federal agencies, such as the Canada Revenue Agency or as Citizenship Canada. There have been 297 victims in 2019 so far, which has led to over $1 million CAD in losses.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre has reported that 4,695 people in the country have lost more than $16.7 million to scams since 2014.

The Big Three, including Bell, Telus, and Rogers, have all said that they are addressing the problem and working with the CRTC to create solutions.

Here is a MobileSyrup guide to identify and block spam calls on iOS and Android phones in Canada.

Source: Competition Bureau