Hello, goodbye. Canada’s telecom companies to crackdown on ‘nuisance’ callers

Nuisance callers are going to face more restrictions on your smartphone.

Canada’s telecom regulator is forcing phone companies to identify callers better and prevent fraudsters from scamming consumers.

The phone companies must implement technology on their networks that do a better job of adequately identifying who’s calling — numbers that look legit but are coming from scammers who claim they’re with the tax department. This also includes daily calls from timeshare operators or cleaning services.

According to the CBC, nuisance calls make up as much as 25 per cent of all phone calls across the country. The technology now being installed won’t completely block the calls. Still, it is expected to slow down “robodialing” and show which calls are verifiable or need to be treated with caution.

In a recent fraud case, one Kingston, Ont. woman lost her life savings to a scammer pretending to be employed by the Canada Border Services Agency. The person told the woman her bank account was being seized due to drugs and various offences. She complied and sent the individual $30,000.

The number of reported Amazon impersonators also grew five times from July 2020 to June 2021. The Federal Trade Commission says out of 96,000 reported business impersonators, 35 per cent used Amazon’s name to lure victims into their tricks.

The telecom regulator says some phone companies are already experimenting with artificial intelligence technology to filter out phone calls on their network that they suspect are fraudulent.