I’ve noted an increase in phone calls coming to my cell phone and my home phone lately. Normally I either don’t answer or punt the calls to voice mail as I suspected that these calls are scam calls. Besides, anyone who wanted to talk to me would leave a voice mail for me. But what happens almost 100% of the time is that the caller doesn’t leave a message. That suggests to me that this view of these being scam calls is likely accurate. But recently, I decided to answer the call to see what the deal was.
The call I got was from a “John Wilson” calling on behalf of Rogers. I put the name in quotes because I guarantee that it was not this caller’s real name. I say that because that’s a very Anglo-Saxon name. But the person on the other end had a pretty easy to detect South Asian accent. That’s always a red flag. Now to be fair, Canadian telcos have been known to use offshore call centres for business generation. And a lot of times those offshore call centres are located in South Asia. But I texted a contact within Rogers who was in a position to know if they have currently contracted out any business generation activities like this and they almost immediately texted back saying no.
So what “Mr. Wilson” was presenting to me was a deal that would cut the price of my “services” by $20-$30 a month. What was interesting was that he never said what “services” that I had which he could save me money on. He then asked me if I was interested in this deal. That’s when I had some fun with him and asked him point blank if he knew who I was and what Rogers services that I had. I did this because Rogers and their contractors from my experience already know who you are and what services you have with them. Thus if they can’t answer those question, it’s likely a scam. Now while this isn’t a 100% bulletproof test as evidenced by this example, it’s good enough that I rely on it. “Mr. Wilson” not only was unable to answer those questions, but he clearly got flustered as I knocked him off his script. Thus confirming that this is a scam.
I told him to have a nice day and hung up on him. But this suggests to me that there’s a threat actor or actors out there that are doing an aggressive outbound scam call campaign trying to leverage the fact that Canadians pay too much money for their telco services. And I say aggressive because I get three to five calls a day from numbers that are from the 647 area code. Now those numbers are highly likely to be spoofed. And the reason why they do that is to make you more likely to answer the call. The thing is, Rogers and their contractors show up on caller ID as Rogers. That’s not to say that a threat actor couldn’t spoof that as well. But Rogers wouldn’t use random 647 area code numbers to call from.
What’s the end game? I am not sure as I didn’t play along long enough to find out. Perhaps it’s meant to grab your credit card details or other financial details so that they can steal money from you? Perhaps if they call again, I’ll play along longer to try and find out. Then I’ll post an update to let you know. But I wanted to get this out there so that you’re aware that this scam is going on, and that you need to protect yourself by being vigilant.
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This entry was posted on April 24, 2024 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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A New Outbound Calling #Scam Using Rogers Name Is Making The Rounds
I’ve noted an increase in phone calls coming to my cell phone and my home phone lately. Normally I either don’t answer or punt the calls to voice mail as I suspected that these calls are scam calls. Besides, anyone who wanted to talk to me would leave a voice mail for me. But what happens almost 100% of the time is that the caller doesn’t leave a message. That suggests to me that this view of these being scam calls is likely accurate. But recently, I decided to answer the call to see what the deal was.
The call I got was from a “John Wilson” calling on behalf of Rogers. I put the name in quotes because I guarantee that it was not this caller’s real name. I say that because that’s a very Anglo-Saxon name. But the person on the other end had a pretty easy to detect South Asian accent. That’s always a red flag. Now to be fair, Canadian telcos have been known to use offshore call centres for business generation. And a lot of times those offshore call centres are located in South Asia. But I texted a contact within Rogers who was in a position to know if they have currently contracted out any business generation activities like this and they almost immediately texted back saying no.
So what “Mr. Wilson” was presenting to me was a deal that would cut the price of my “services” by $20-$30 a month. What was interesting was that he never said what “services” that I had which he could save me money on. He then asked me if I was interested in this deal. That’s when I had some fun with him and asked him point blank if he knew who I was and what Rogers services that I had. I did this because Rogers and their contractors from my experience already know who you are and what services you have with them. Thus if they can’t answer those question, it’s likely a scam. Now while this isn’t a 100% bulletproof test as evidenced by this example, it’s good enough that I rely on it. “Mr. Wilson” not only was unable to answer those questions, but he clearly got flustered as I knocked him off his script. Thus confirming that this is a scam.
I told him to have a nice day and hung up on him. But this suggests to me that there’s a threat actor or actors out there that are doing an aggressive outbound scam call campaign trying to leverage the fact that Canadians pay too much money for their telco services. And I say aggressive because I get three to five calls a day from numbers that are from the 647 area code. Now those numbers are highly likely to be spoofed. And the reason why they do that is to make you more likely to answer the call. The thing is, Rogers and their contractors show up on caller ID as Rogers. That’s not to say that a threat actor couldn’t spoof that as well. But Rogers wouldn’t use random 647 area code numbers to call from.
What’s the end game? I am not sure as I didn’t play along long enough to find out. Perhaps it’s meant to grab your credit card details or other financial details so that they can steal money from you? Perhaps if they call again, I’ll play along longer to try and find out. Then I’ll post an update to let you know. But I wanted to get this out there so that you’re aware that this scam is going on, and that you need to protect yourself by being vigilant.
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This entry was posted on April 24, 2024 at 1:46 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Rogers, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.