Fake calls from my mobile number

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Fake calls from my mobile number

snowfly

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#250842 28-May-2019 10:43

I've had a couple of instances lately where I receive a call from a random person, saying "I missed a call from you", but the thing is I never called these people to start with???

It appears someone might be spoofing my mobile number (its an 021 xxx xxx 6 digit number) and making calls to these people, and when these people hit redial or call the number back, it comes back to me.

Any way to stop this?
I've checked my phone call log history, and skinny app transaction history, and I definitely did not make the original calls, so someone else is.

A bit frustrating when the last person dialing me back seemed like some old irate guy, demanding to know my details and why I called him!?

Maybe I'll just stop answering calls from numbers that aren't in my contacts list, so these irate people get sent to voicemail.

1024kb

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#2246876 28-May-2019 11:05

That could be someone you know who's got a little bit of malicious knowledge - enough to know about purchasing some spoof calls & pranking you. I don't know how you can effectively fight back, short of changing your number. The next step from this early discovery period can create a highly effective fraud - like calling your personal banker or stockbroker.

It could also be someone who's purchased your details on the Dark Web - $50 for full details of high net-worth individuals, $15 for average punters information. I don't see why they would bother with prank calls to random individuals though - if they are just random individuals? Is there any pattern to the calls?

I don't get why people get irate because they missed a call - irate or not, they still missed a call.

When I first found out about these services I had to try one out to be sure it worked, so I called my girlfriend from her own number. That was one confused call, the spoofing system works as advertised.

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snowfly

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#2247240 28-May-2019 16:12

No pattern to the calls yet, just different random individuals.

I'll start tracking the numbers to see if there is any pattern.

Behodar

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#2247243 28-May-2019 16:24

I've received multiple calls from various fake numbers over the past few weeks, and I suspect you're seeing the same thing from the other end: Someone's probably plucking a number out of thin air - which happens to be yours - and then making scam calls with it as the "from".

Some of these numbers are clearly fake (and I'd love to know why Spark etc. don't block them) but some do follow the same format as valid numbers.

brucealdridge

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#2251753 5-Jun-2019 09:13

I've been getting these spam calls recently too. Usually once per day on weekdays, always between 9-11am from a previously unknown number. When I pickup, there is nothing/noone on the other end.

For the life of me I cannot figure out the point of it.

They always seem to come from 02x numbers so surely the networks could be doing more, maybe they just don't know about it?

hsvhel

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#2309484 2-Sep-2019 14:16

I've recently started receiving calls from a mix of local 021 or international coded +64 21

Have picked up to on occasion due to my nature of work, same deal......online support/virus blah blah

called one back to, it went to a lady that has been getting people calling her back, but shes never called them. How are they doing this? is it just a case or barring those numbers and eventually they move on like the old other country calls.

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PolicyGuy

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#2309570 2-Sep-2019 16:03

Behodar:

Some of these numbers are clearly fake (and I'd love to know why Spark etc. don't block them) but some do follow the same format as valid numbers.

This.

Why do the telcos allow inbound calls that purport to come from their network (caller ID is one of theirs) when the call clearly comes from outside? Surely they could just reject the call at the network boundary?

"oh it might be a roaming mobile"
Well it's their mobile number, they must know what network can see it right now so they can bill it, soo they know this phone is in NZ / Australia / somewhere and then call is originating from anywhere else -> bin it