Jul 12, 2016
A very-poor-quality, female-voice recording, beginning with a cute musical gong and purporting to be from the Canada Revenue Agency, was left on my voicemail the evening of July 11, 2016. The message, difficult to understand, was that an investigation had revealed I had defrauded the Canada Revenue Agency of an undisclosed amount of death-benefit money. Absolute HOKUM. I called the number, by mistake, and was greeted by a live, male voice, with Southeast Asian accent, who asked me first for my phone number -- to which I replied with a fictitious number -- which he keyed in. He then asked me if I am Mr. XXX, and I said, "YES," in a loud, clear voice. The line went dead. So, perhaps there is a nervous, little Dick somewhere in Bombay! And so I called the CRTC's do not call list. Again. The DNCL agent said the change in the extortion-based script was probably the result of some people actually calling in to the scammers' number.