Ontario residents are still receiving scam phone calls meant to trick them into giving away personal information or making fraudulent payments.
Scammers use caller ID spoofing to make it look like a local number, business, or government agency is calling. This creates a false sense of trust and pressures people into responding. Many of these calls use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology, allowing scammers to hide their real phone numbers.
Common tactics include “neighboring,” where the caller ID matches the first six digits of the recipient’s number to seem local, “mirroring,” where the recipient’s own number appears to encourage them to answer, and “impersonation,” where the caller pretends to be a trusted organization like a bank, police service, or government agency.
To stay safe, people should not trust caller ID since numbers can be faked, let unknown calls go to voicemail, never share personal or financial information over the phone, hang up and verify by calling the organization directly using an official number, and report suspicious calls to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 or online.
For more fraud prevention tips, visit opp.ca and sfo.opp.ca. Anyone who suspects fraud or has been a victim should report it to their local police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.
Written by: K. Milhomens