Don't answer a call from this number!

A brand new phone scam is targeting Australians with a mobile phone. These scammers are calling Australians from a number that identifies from Latvia on the users mobile phone. The scammer then hangs up within 2 rings in the hope that you will return the call.



Typically, if you return the call, you will most likely be put in hold with pleasant wait music until you hang up. The goal of the scammers is to keep you on the line as long as possible, as the number you are calling is a premium number similar to that used in Australia by psychic hotlines or sex lines.

I received a call on Saturday night from Latvia which I didn't answer. Other users on twitter have reported receiving calls from Morocco on top of the calls from Latvia.

As always, if you don't know anyone in the country you are being called from, don't answer. If it's important, they will leave a voice message!

6 comments

I do not even return local calls unless I recognise the number. Unless it is from someone in my family the caller will have to call me back because I will not call them.

 

 

At the end of last week we had incessent calls also on both our iPhones from 4 different numbers. The number's last three digits were 512, 513, 515 and 518.

I found that blocking each number finally got rid of the lot. Click on the Recents icon at the bottom menu bar and a list of numbers should come up. Click on the i inside a circle symbol beside the number and Info appears at the top of the next page and call details appear below. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on Block this caller.  Finito.  Then onto the next one if there is more than 1.

Happy blocking.

Drew - was it a sex line that you called ?

Hope you got your money's worth

There are many countries that these calls come from, I was getting calls from an 07 number, when I checked the calls online, the calls were recognised as coming from the UK, SWITZERLAND and I think the other might have been Spain, I thought all countries had a different starting numbers, but if you think about it that would mean the first 2 numbers could only be between 00 and 09 so obviously the same 2 numbers are shared between many countries, I must admit I never even thought about it before.

I have an old fashioned answering machine on myhome line.  This sorts out the legit from the shonky calls.  I don't even monitor the two mobiles as they are just for emergencies.

 

Good advice Drew. Wonder whether people are aware of this.

 

Do you try to screen your calls for scammers?

Phone scam criminals have a trick to get around that.

It is called phone spoofing.

Phone spoofing is when someone disguises the number they are calling or texting from by changing their caller ID. Some businesses do this legally and for legitimate reasons.

But phone scammers around the world have also cottoned onto it.

They hijack or imitate phone numbers, either to imitate a person, business or department to get money or information. Or to appear like a local or legitimate number to increase their chances of getting through to their victim.

Sometimes they randomly spoof the number of an ordinary person. And then things get really complicated.

Phone number hacked

As Ethan Fitzgerald can tell you.

One day last month, his phone started ringing off the hook with hundreds of phone calls from around Australia.

They were all saying the same thing — they had missed a call from his number.

"My phone would just jam up — it was unreal.

"I had one bloke, he rang me up and he threatened to go to the coppers.

"My phone number had called him about 25 times in a day. I tried to explain to him that my phone had been hacked."

The affected number was Mr Fitzgerald's business landline for his steel and engineering company in Wangaratta in north east Victoria.

Mr Fitzgerald said he was faced with the prospect of having to change his number, not an attractive prospect given he had recently bought the business and all the goodwill that came with its phone number.

"I got clientele that probably have the number written on their shed wall," Mr Fitzgerald said.

"They ring me up, old farmers, real old-school people, they'll still have this number in their old diary book … they ring that number for a bit of steel."

Mr Fitzgerald said he was receiving so many calls his business phone was rendered temporarily useless.

"I probably lost two days and in two days I could make upwards of $10,000 just by sitting in the office organising things," he said.

Mr Fitzgerald went to Telstra about the problem but was met with a blank.

"When I spoke to Telstra, I was up at the Telstra shop, he actually just stood there and said 'I can't see a problem, I don't think there is one'."

Who's calling?Cordless phone on messy kitchen tablePHOTO: Telecommunication experts believe the problem of phone spoofing may get worse over the next year or so. (ABC Rural: Rachel Carbonell)

 

Professor of cybersecurity at University of the Sunshine Coast, Dave Lacey, said it was more than likely Mr Fitzgerald's number had been spoofed by a phone scammer.

In this case it appears scammers have randomly picked Mr Fitzgerald's number to make scam calls from.

"In a way what they're trying to do is distance themselves from the crime.

"By choosing any particular number in the community whether it be just a community member or a small business they're already separating themselves from the criminal activity that's going on when they're making those telephone scam calls."

Professor Lacey said while many people probably answered that call, others missed it and called back, only to reach a confused and frustrated Mr Fitzgerald, rather than the phone scammer that had called them.

This kind of phone spoofing can be a real problem for the elderly. Let alone those living in the country who are often more reliant on their landline services.

One case involved Joy (not her real name), a 69-year-old woman who lives alone in a small rural town in Western Victoria, doesn't use a mobile phone or the internet and she has had the same landline phone number for more than 30 years.

One day, out of the blue, she too started being bombarded with calls from people all over Australia.

"I had 20 one day. I'd put it down and it'd ring again," Joy said

Some of the calls were abusive, from people angry about the call or message they had received from her number.

Read the rest here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-03/mobiles-and-landlines-targetted-by-international-phone-scammers/9719820

Yep Micha, phone spoofing, a big problem. Thanks for the alert.

Cheers Reagan!

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