SaskTel says it is “taking active steps” to block a recent surge of international scam phone calls affecting its customers, noting it will “continue to monitor this situation.”
The Saskatchewan crown corporation said on Wednesday it is aware of a recent increase of scam calls from international destinations and they are “actively working to block as many of these calls as possible.”
SaskTel says customers should not answer unexpected international calls and if you do answer, hang up immediately.
“These types of calls are truly a national issue, impacting people and communications providers all across the country. The majority of nuisance calls, including scams, are generated by computer-dialers that enable spammers to dial many numbers at once,” explained SaskTel.
SaskTel says it is working with the CRTC and “others in our industry” to find solutions to fight these spam calls.
The company says spam phone calls can be reported to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre (CAFC) and also noted most smartphones have features to block scam calls, or apps are available to download to block unwanted calls.
For iPhone users, you can enable the feature ‘Silence Unknown Callers’ by going to Settings > Phone > Silence Unknown Callers > ON.
The feature will silence unknown numbers and send them to voicemail but show them in the Recents list, but incoming calls from your contacts, recent outgoing calls and Siri Suggestions will come through.
Scammers recently started targeting Rogers wireless customers with fake text messages, taking advantage of the company’s recent nationwide outage.
