Robocall study shows unique way researchers are trying to track down phone scammers

Immigration consultant Amanjit Kaur said far too often, she is hearing stories of international students and newcomers to Canada falling victim to an increasing number of “robocalls.”

"These are calls asking for your personal identification details, like your SIN number, name, address, or date of birth," said Kaur. "I've noticed, sometimes, they want to record your voice so they can login to things through the voice system as well."

It's robocalls like these that have a pair of U.S. researchers attempting to track down the whereabouts of phone scammers by using the same information given out by robocallers against them.

According to CTV News science and technology expert Dan Riskin, the two researchers created 60,000 decoy phone numbers — similar to how police may leave decoy cars that are meant to be stolen — for the sole purpose of receiving robocalls.

Over a two-year period, nearly 233,000 robocalls came through. While the robocalls would come through from an unrecognizable number, about 45 per cent would leave a callback number.

"When most of these phone calls come, they use this spoofing technology to hide what phone number it's really coming from. So you're getting these robocalls where it's from your area code, you pick it up and it's very clearly from somewhere far away," said Riskin. "But when about half [of the calls] leave that robocall message, they want money or something else from you, so they give you information on how to call them back ... and that gives authorities a way to track down who's making these calls."

As for Kaur, she said it's imperative that everyone — especially those who are unfamiliar to phone scams and robocalls —become educated on how prevalent they can be and the ramifications of falling victim to one.

"A lot of my clients do not understand how important and vital their SIN number is and how everything is linked to that single number. If they give that away, they're basically giving everything away to the scammers," said Kaur.

Kaur added her office receives multiple robocalls a day.

She refers to these calls as "a waste of time and resources," especially in the immigration sector where all phone calls must be answered since they could be from someone in dire need of immigration services.

"Everything hinges on our phone calls. We can not afford to miss a call," said Kaur. "It takes time away from something productive we could be doing for someone."

While Canadians can sign up to be on the Do Not Call Registry, which legitimate organizations and companies abide by, Riskin said its effectiveness is unclear due a lack of data on this issue.

"One estimate is that there are more robocalls happening on phone lines than actual person to person calls," said Riskin.

According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), phone carriers may provide options to help stop unwanted calls from ever reaching you — but you'll need to reach out to them directly to find out what those options are.

Details on the robocall study done by the two U.S. researchers can be found here.