Most of our phones will helpfully display the telephone number or even the name, for incoming calls. This is a great help. You can often avoid telephone solicitors, for instance sending “Annoying Surveys Inc.” to voicemail. You can prepare your greeting, greeting an office colleague more formally than an old college friend. Unfortunately, you cannot blindly rely on the number and name displayed.

With Great Power…

Internet telephone technology, most often Voice over IP (VoIP), is an amazing low cost innovation that many people and businesses rely upon to save money, make easy inter-office phone transfers possible, allow for simultaneous ringing of phones at different locations worldwide so anyone can pick it up, provide flexible services like “find me anywhere”, and much more. Unfortunately, a powerful technology with a lot of cool features can often be misused by a bad actor, so VoIP can be misused too.
This technology can be accessed by anyone in the world. Bear this in mind, the next time you get a call from, say, Oakbank, by someone with a strong accent. They might be recent immigrants, or they may actually be on the other side of the world.

Telephone Number Spoofing

When making an outgoing call, an Internet phone must tell the phone system what its telephone number is. It can say anything, for instance the number of the local Royal Bank branch, the office of the Prime Minister, or anybody else. Your phone uses the phone number to look up the name, and will dutifully show “Royal Bank Unicity” or whatever on the screen. If you call the number back, you will get to the real Royal Bank office, so that’s helpful, but read on – you can’t rely on this either.

A Local or Toll-Free Number from Anyone, Anywhere

Using an Internet phone, anyone in the world can get a phone number in any state or province, even a toll-free number. It doesn’t cost much, maybe $5 initially and then something like$ 3 a month. A misleading name can also be assigned, maybe with typo errors that might fool you into thinking that it’s a local business or official office. For instance, using the number “1” instead of the letter “I” in the name “MP1C”. In this case, someone can call you claiming to be from MPIC and you might believe them! If you call them back, you are calling the number that they own and use, and you will get back to the fraudulent person.
This is often what is at the heart of the “you owe back taxes and will be arrested” scam calls. The fraudster gives you a trivial bit of publicly available information in an attempt to convince you that they are the IRS, CRA or RCMP, telling you that you owe money and must pay immediately. They may have you call them back on the same number, or give you a 1-800 number to call them back on. Don’t do it! The fraudsters own that number, and are just waiting for you to take the bait.

Are Text Messages More Trustworthy?

The same technology that empowers VoIP can also be used to send text messages, so, sadly, they can’t be fully trusted either. Text messages, also known as Short Message Service (SMS), were implemented with the original mobile phones. Fortunately, although it’s not unheard of, it’s not easy to spoof an SMS message, so it should have the correct phone number on it. In most cases, a name is only displayed when it’s in your personal telephone book, so it’s easy to see which messages are from people you don’t know. However, it’s a very old system dating from the early 90s and doesn’t have great security, so don’t rely on it to be completely private.
Someone who signs up for a local or toll-free phone number can generally send SMS messages to and from the same number. For instance, in the example given above, “MP1C” can make calls, take calls, and send and receive SMS messages. So, don’t necessarily trust someone who calls you and then sends you a text message from the same number. That is trivially easy to do.
Other than this, the biggest risk of an SMS is that you click on a link or download a doctored image or audio message that causes a problem on your phone. Always be suspicious of links in SMS messages, especially if it comes from a number not in your address book.

What You can Do to Protect Yourself

Have a healthy skepticism of all incoming calls. If someone calls you and asks for sensitive personal details, like birthday credit information, it’s best to tell them you are too busy, then call back at the official number for the business or government agency.
- Further to this, when looking up the number of a business or government agency, don’t just search the name and take the top number on the list.
- Fraudsters can “game” the search engine order and sometimes can make their results appear at the top!
- It’s better to go to the web site of the actual bank or agency and find the “contact us” information there.
- In the case of a bank or credit card, always use the number on the back of your debit or credit card, or from an official statement.
Never click on a link in an SMS message, unless you are sure that you are sure that you know where the message came from. Again, if you are suspicious, look up the business or agency that it purports to be from, call and confirm that the message is from them.
UPS, Fedex, Canada Post and the US Postal Service do not generally send messages by text.
- If you receive a “we cannot deliver the parcel” message, think about whether you are expecting a parcel first.
- Is there any other way to confirm which parcel it might be? Can you check with the post office and see if there’s an issue? Why would there be an issue?
- Be suspicious, it’s safer to be that way, even if it might be less convenient!

Does VoIP Technology Sound Intriguing?

If you are a computer geek, want to save some money on telephone service, or just like to mess with technology, there are relatively inexpensive ways to get involved with VoIP. A quick search for “VoIP” online will give lots of resources. If you send me a question, I will point you to resources as I am able.