SaskTel working on blocking international scam calls

SaskTel says it’s aware of recent scam calls targeting residents in the province.

Greg Jacobs, the external communications manager for SaskTel, said the international calls could end up being costly.

“We’re seeing a very large increase in the amount of traffic from this particular type of scam,” Jacobs said. “Some bad actors from an international location are repeatedly calling 306 numbers to try and get individuals to call them back.

“By doing so, they would potentially trigger long-distance charges, which would then generate revenue for these bad actors.”

SaskTel is working on blocking these calls and plans on monitoring the situation.

“These types of calls are truly a national issue, impacting people and communications providers all across the country,” a release by SaskTel said. “The majority of nuisance calls, including scams, are generated by computer-dialers that enable spammers to dial many numbers at once.”

Jacobs says the best advice for people who receive one of these suspicious notifications is quite simple.

“The easiest thing to do is ignore it, don’t answer it (and) don’t call the number back,” he said. “Don’t interact with it in any way, shape or form.”

Scam calls can be reported to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre on its website or by phone at 1-888-495-8501.