On Sept. 22, Lakes District News published an article Telephone scam in Burns Lake, about a local woman who was the victim of a telephone scam where an unknown individual pretending to be a Telus agent attempted to steal personal information. As it turns out, this has also been a problem for several other people in the area.
READ MORE: Telephone scam in Burns Lake
According to Telus Public Relations Representative Chelsey Rajzer, a number of Telus customers have recently reported receiving fraudulent phishing calls.
“Fraudsters try to trick users into sharing sensitive information by mimicking phone numbers and/or pretending to be calling from a safe and trusted source, like a bank, utility, or other service provider,” she said. “We urge our customers to take steps to safeguard their privacy and to report these scams to the RCMP Anti-Fraud Centre, either online or at 1-888-495-8501.”
The woman who initially spoke to Lakes District News about the incident said that the scam phone call came after she had called Telus to report an issue with her billing. After being told she would receive a call from an agent shortly to help fix the problem, the fraudulent caller phoned first, making her think she was speaking to a real Telus agent.
Lakes District News asked Rajzer how the fraudulent caller would know that the women had just made a call to Telus, and if phone calls were somehow being monitored. “In regards to the timing of the call, I can confirm that it is not attributable to calls being monitored,” Rajzer said.
She went on to say that Telus is taking steps to help ensure customers don’t give up any personal information to these phishing attacks.
Some of the ways you can protect yourself are; take a moment to ask yourself if the caller is requesting personal or sensitive information, putting pressure on you, or if something seems off. If you received an unexpected and suspicious call, do not respond, just end the call right away. If it is a suspicious email or text message, do not respond or click on any links or attachments.