The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) O Division’s Windsor detachment has issued a warning about a phone spoofing scam.
According to the RCMP on Friday, the detachment’s phone number, (519) 948-5287, is being unlawfully used by scammers to intimidate and defraud victims.
With spoofing, a device masks the real phone number and displays a different number, in this case, the RCMP’s number. This technique is tricking victims into believing they are speaking with legitimate law enforcement officers.
The RCMP emphasizes that they will never ask for payments using Bitcoin or gift cards, nor will they show up at residences to collect money for a child in jail. This is a typical way for scammers to extract money from victims. Additionally, they will not request personal information such as Social Insurance Numbers (SIN), dates of birth (DOB), or phone numbers.
It’s important to note that in Ontario, the RCMP enforces federal laws, focusing on areas such as national security, border integrity, and financial crimes like cybercrime and money laundering. They are not the primary police jurisdiction in Ontario.
The RCMP advises the public to be vigilant and informed about these scams. If anyone suspects they are being scammed, they should hang up, wait ten minutes, and then call their local police service. This waiting period is crucial as scammers can maintain a spoofed phone number for up to 10 minutes. When in doubt, just hang up the phone.
Victims of such scams are urged to report the incident to their local police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
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Rogers Bell and Telus could help stop this but they would lose criminal customers so they don’t do anything. One simple thing would be to allow customers to block number on the carrier’s side, not on your phone which means you still get the voice mail. If instead you could block numbers on the carrier’s side then the call would never theoretically reach you in order to trigger the voicemail.
How was your comment relevant to this article?!
Work on your reading comprehension and you’ll work it out. It is in fact directly relevant.
You mean block numbers like I can on EVERY VoIP provider??? Blasphemy!
I wonder how much money these scam/spam calls yield to the carriers so they have ZERO incentive to act.
Funny, maybe RCMP instead of letting people know they have been spoofed, can get off their fat arses and twist the carriers’ arm in the name of “security”…just maybe.
Dunno, maybe it’s important to Canadian people to trust that when RCMP is calling, they are not calling from Wakanda , eh?
just sign up with a USA carrier, problem solved. plus you will get:
* free roaming in north america
* free visual voice mail
* cheaper data
* more reliable network and better support