Cyber criminals and scam artists are always open for business looking for every angle they can find to locate their next victim.
March is cybercrime awareness month – a good time to highlight some scams making the rounds in Delta.
It was with this in mind that the Optimist recently had a chat with Const. Dustin Classen from the Cybercrime Unit of Delta Police who offered his insights.
Scam calls, be it an automated call in other languages, tend to hit residents’ phone numbers several times a day, he says.
“It’s just an added warning to the residents of Delta to not respond to these calls, but even just answering these calls can put you on a list where you end up getting more contact from the scammers,” Classen said. “Some of these calls are designed to scam you out of your personal identification or your money, but some of these calls are strictly designed to see if someone picks up. You will have an autodialler wherever it is located throughout the world and if no one picks up, it will note that there is no answer, but if someone picks up, says hello and the line goes dead, it confirms that there is someone at that number. That data set can then be sold to other scammers and other organizations to further scams against these people.”
Classen said there are lots of 1+778 numbers coming in to residents in the community.
“Just be warry of that, block these calls if you can and never pick up,” he said. “Other prevalent calls are people…
