It started on the morning of Nov. 29 — relentless phone calls and text messages lighting up David Bishay's cellphone.

He answered the first few, confused when the angry callers asked why he'd called them, what he wanted and to leave them alone.

When he started receiving about 30 calls per minute, Bishay said he knew something was up.

"'My phone's been hijacked,'" Bishay remembers telling one caller.

"'Someone is spoofing my number.'"

Since Nov. 29, David Bishay has received relentless phone calls from angry people asking why he'd called them. Bishay says he's the victim of "spoofing," where a scammer disguises their true phone number and uses a legitimate one instead. Read more: <a href="https://t.co/vtpk8hUiKg">https://t.co/vtpk8hUiKg</a> <a href="https://t.co/zTKl8JqepT">pic.twitter.com/zTKl8JqepT</a> —@CBCToronto

Bishay said he'd recently read about "spoofing," where a scammer disguises their true phone number and uses a legitimate one, like Bishay's, instead.

They're not actually calling from the number, but they're able to send different information to their victim's caller ID.

By using a local phone number like Bishay's, or even one from a federal department like the RCMP or the CRA, scammers are trying to increase the chances their victims will answer.

For Bishay, the scam meant thousands of verbally abusive calls, voicemails and texts over the last three weeks from people who suspected he'd tried to scam them.

"They were angry. They were hostile. They were nasty," he said.

To compound the matter, Bishay said he's not able to change his number or even turn off his phone. In fact, he tried to answer most of the calls.

He runs his own business as a licensed funeral director and works on-call 24 hours a day. He said many legitimate phone calls likely went unanswered.

"Death doesn't discriminate, so they could all, any one of them could potentially need my help."

CRTC working on solution

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is working on solutions to these phone scams.

Starting Dec. 19, they required all telecommunication providers to implement a system that would block blatantly fraudulent phone numbers, meaning they're malformed or too long.

Alternatively, telecoms have to offer customers "filtering services" so customers can block calls from certain numbers.

Starting Dec. 19, telecom providers in Canada will be required to block certain types of unsolicited and illegitimate calls from reaching customers. (Kichiro Sato/The Associated Press)

For spoofing, spokesperson for the CRTC Patricia Valladao said they hope to have new technology ready for cellphones by Sept. 2020.

"Spoofing is a call that's been made on voice over IP (VoIP), been made over a computer," she said.

"The network will tag an electronic signature to validate if it's a real call or not. So on the other side of the line the person receiving the call will be able to ... see that it is indeed a real call."

Valladao said the CRTC received 84,000 spoofing complaints in 2017 — their latest report — and the numbers are continuing to go up.

Her advice to victims: Never give out personal information, and "complain," she said, adding the more information they have, the more likely they can find the culprit.

Tips to protect yourself

For Cosmin Munteanu, professor at the University of Toronto's Institute for Communication, Culture, Information and Technology, there are some problems with the proposed system.

"It can filter legitimate calls, for example, some companies may use a single phone number for dispatch and it gets routed or spoofed to someone's cell phone that works in the field ... it is very hard to say that everything is illegitimate."

He said part of the solution should be more education, helping people be more aware of the pressure tactics used in these calls.

"Technology in itself … it's not going to solve this problem because scammers are going to find another way."

Cosmin Munteanu said scammers are increasing using 'neighbourhood spoofing' to trick victims into believing they're answering a call from someone local. (Paul Borkwood/CBC)

Munteanu recommends not answering your phone for an unknown number. He said if you do, you become a target for future calls.

If you do happen to pick-up, hang up and call back, he said.

"Even if it is a legitimate call from the revenue agency, they're not going to put you in jail if you hang-up and call back."

Unfortunately, the tactic has downfalls of its own, as seen in Bishay's case.

He's still receiving dozens of calls and texts from people every day asking who he is.

"It's subsided a little bit thankfully, but it's persisting," he said.

"There really isn't a solution besides waiting … It's going to continue until something concrete, something effective and something long lasting can be done about it."