Number Spoofing on Vodafone

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › Number Spoofing on Vodafone

Tockly

346 posts

Ultimate Geek

#301891 12-Oct-2022 15:47

Today I have had a number of people ringing me saying that they have missed a call from me. I haven't made any calls and don't even know these people so can only assume someone is spoofing my number.

I have checked the out going call list on both my phone and via the Vodafone web site and none of the calls show there.

So I rang Vodafone to see if they could help and OMG the guy was almost impossible to understand and had no idea what I was on about. He kept saying to restart my phone!!! Also said there was nothing wrong with my account. He just couldn't even understand what I was talking about.

"I am getting people ringing me back saying they have missed a call from me".... Have you rebooted your phone? What the!!!!

"What do I say to people who ring me saying they've missed a call?"...... (Long Silence).... Ummm I don't know.

Is there anyone from Vodafone who would like to help me with this? Really don't want this happening with my number!!

lxsw20

3552 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#2982021 12-Oct-2022 16:21

If your number is being spoofed there is nothing the telco can do, from my understanding. The call is not really coming from you/Vodafone.

tripper1000

1617 posts

Uber Geek

#2982025 12-Oct-2022 16:28

Someone may correct me, but I'm not so sure Vodafone could help you (technically speaking) even if they spoke good English - the calls will most likely be coming from off-shore and won't be going via the Vodafone network, so they couldn't block them even if they wanted to.

The foreign call-centre and their hollow promises is a key reason I left V.F. Now they are kiwi owned maybe they'll bring it back on-shore like a bunch of other companies have (or maybe not with the current labour shortage).

boosacnoodle

963 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2982106 12-Oct-2022 21:14

It should really be opt-in to receive calls from either a) all overseas providers or opt-in to receive calls from b) specific countries. Would stop an awful lot of these scammers and force them to use on-shore services to scam from (which would be a riskier proposition, as it should be easier to trace).

The complacency on the part of carriers is really disappointing to see, especially given the social and economic harm done by these scams. The FCC will be mandating Caller ID Verification from June next year. We should be doing the same, if not sooner.

Sorry to say but you are in a difficult position unfortunately with little you can do.

prat33k

182 posts

Master Geek

#2982125 12-Oct-2022 22:28

Ngl, I have recently seen way too many scam reports in the past couple months than I have seen in 2 years of me working in the same organization.

All of them seems to be coming from overseas carriers and most of them have spoofed them to be as NZ local numbers. This is also a bigger issue as most companies are dealing with staff shortages and a big influx of these calls in recent times.

in your case there's nothing Vodafone can do unfortunately, and I highly doubt the poor tier 1 helpdesk guys would have any clue about number spoofing.

MurrayM

2455 posts

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#2982183 13-Oct-2022 09:35

I had this exact same thing happen to me, but in my case it was my work phone number that was spoofed. I arrived in to work one day to find a bunch of messages left on my work phone (not a mobile) from people from all over NZ. I'd never heard of any of these people. I just assumed that someone had used my number to make spam calls and deleted all the messages. This was a couple of months ago and it hasn't happened since, so I assume the spammers use a number of a while and then move on to a different number.

Batman

Mad Scientist
29760 posts

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#2982189 13-Oct-2022 10:11

MurrayM:

I had this exact same thing happen to me, but in my case it was my work phone number that was spoofed. I arrived in to work one day to find a bunch of messages left on my work phone (not a mobile) from people from all over NZ. I'd never heard of any of these people. I just assumed that someone had used my number to make spam calls and deleted all the messages. This was a couple of months ago and it hasn't happened since, so I assume the spammers use a number of a while and then move on to a different number.

wow didn't even know this was possible!

shk292

2853 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2982200 13-Oct-2022 10:48

I had a spate of this last year, nothing anyone could do about it but after a few months, they stopped

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Behodar

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#2982233 13-Oct-2022 11:57

boosacnoodle:

The complacency on the part of carriers is really disappointing to see, especially given the social and economic harm done by these scams. The FCC will be mandating Caller ID Verification from June next year. We should be doing the same, if not sooner.

Indeed. There is a thing called STIR/SHAKEN which has been mandatory in the US since the middle of last year. Last week the FCC told the remaining holdouts that they had a fortnight to implement it or they'd be kicked off the phone network.

Meanwhile I don't believe the NZ govt has even lifted a finger to try to stop this sort of thing.

[Edited for clarity/correctness]