If it seems that your phone is recently flowing with more spam text messages, then it is probably.
The Canadian Anti-Fod Center says that so-called smoothing efforts appear to grow, thanks to new techniques that allow for coordinated bulk attacks.
The Center’s communication outreach officer Jeff Horncastal says that the agency has actually received a low fraud report in the first six months of 2025, but it can be misleading because so few people actually warn the Center to events.
He says that with the help of Artificial Intelligence Tools, smoothing is more than the probability, which can assure messages from safety violations to expose new goals or score data.
The warning comes when the competition bureau recently sent an alert about the strategy as it says that many people are looking at more suspicious text messages.
Smishing is a type of portmant of SMS and fishing in which a text message is used to click on the link and try to achieve the goal to provide personal information.
Ruse comes in several forms, but often involves a message that urges immediate action to solve an alleged problem to come from a real outfit or business.
This can be about an inseparable package, a suspended bank account or the news of tax corresponding.
Horncastal says it differs from more involved scams such as a lesson invitation to call an alleged job recruitment, which then tries to extract personal or financial information by phone.
Nevertheless, he says that a lesson scam can be quite sophisticated because today’s fraudsters can use artificial intelligence to scan the data leaks for personal details that increase the Hocxes, or use AI writing tools to help write the text message.
“In the past, our message was always part: look for spelling mistakes. It is not always now,” they say.
“Now, this message can come from another country where English cannot be the first language, but because the technique is available, may not have mistakes like a few years ago.”
The competition bureau warns to click on suspicious links and forward texts at 7726 (SPAM), so that the cellular provider can further investigate. It also encourages people to remove smoching messages, block number and ignore texts, even if they ask to answer with “stop” or “no”.
Horncastal says that in the first six months of 2025, the Center received 886 reports of the spots till 30 June. It is trending below 2,546 reports in 2024, a decline from 3,874 in 2023. That too, in 2022 reports from 7,380 declined.
But those numbers do not tell the story enough, they say.
“We really get a very small percentage of what is there. And especially when we are watching fishing or smooching, the reporting rate is very low. So usually we say we say that only five to 10 percent of the victims have reported fraud to the anti-canadian-forad center.”
Horncastal says it is difficult to say how new technology is being used, but he notes is that AI is a frequent device for all types of nefarious plans such as manipulated photos, videos and audio.
“It is more than the possibility of growing due to various types of technology that is available for fraudsters,” Horncastal said.
“So we will discuss a lot on AI, where the fraudsters now have the equipment available now. It’s just reality, okay? Where they can craft fishing messages and send them to bulk through the automation through these highly sophisticated platforms that are available.”
The Directorate of the Cosesman Bureau of the Competition Bureau says that an informed public is the best security against Sming.
Deputy Commissioner Josephine Palumbo says, “The bureau is constantly assessing the market and is able to know through our intelligence abilities that when scams are growing and there are immediate effects on society,” is called Deputy Commissioner Josephin Palumbo.
“This is where these alerts actually, actually use.”
She says it is difficult to track fraudsters using prepaid SIM cards to mold their identity while targeting the victims.
“Since the SIM card is identified, there is a lack of verification, so enforcement agencies like the competition bureau actually have a difficult time to track these criminals,” says Palumbo.
Fraudsters can also spoil the phone number, making it seem that a lesson has originated with a legitimate agency such as Canada Revenue Agency, Horncastal.
They say, “They can choose a number that they want to show randomly or if they are claiming to be a financial institution, they can show the number of that financial institutions on the call display,” they say.
“We have seen CRA and even Canadian Anti-Frod Center (that), where the fraudsters have shown our phone numbers on the call display of the victims.”