BC Business
STIR/SHAKEN is meant to keep callers from hiding their identity with a fake number.
Believe it or not, complaints about phone scams are down
14,085,042 – Phone numbers on Canada’s National Do Not Call List as of April 2021
38,367 – B.C. phone numbers added in the 2019-20 year
The CRTC got 15,352 complaints about phone scams and 13,370 complaints about telemarketers in 2020
B.C. scam and telemarketing complaints were down 61.7% and 57.4%, respectively, from the previous year
There were 947 telemarketing call centres in Canada in 2019 (Not including order fulfilment or fundraising)
103 were in B.C.
Average annual revenue, nationally: $8,094,000
$15,000 – Maximum fine, per incident, for companies that violate Canada’s Unsolicited Telemarketing Rules
16/80 CRTC enforcement actions taken in 2020 were against B.C. businesses
Total fines levied against B.C. companies for Do Not Call List violations in 2020: $72,000
In a 2019 global survey, Canada ranked 11th for spam calls
Canadian spam calls by type:
48% scammer
21% telemarketer
19% debt collector
7% financial services company
5% operator
At 66% vs. the national average of 53%, British Columbians were the most likely in Canada to say they’d been targeted by an attempted phone scam in the past year
41% were the target of a CRA-type scam
BCers were also the least likely to give out personal information to a caller who claims to be from the CRA or their financial institution, with 83% saying no
At 41%, British Columbians are the least likely in Canada to know the terms “vishing” (making fraudulent phone/VoIP calls) or “smishing” (sending malicious fake links via text)
79 – Individual scam types recorded by the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre website
Sources: CRTC, Industry Canada, Truecaller, Ipsos, Telus, Comcast, Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre