Private Landline Number Being Spoofed by Scammers

[David761]

For perhaps 5 months my mother has been getting occasional 1471 call backs from people in the UK saying they have been called from her landline.

Looking at a “who called me” website her landline number is being spoofed by a crowd impersonating VISA. There have been 33 searches over the period so presumably hundreds of calls are being made. The calls to the people are not listed on her call logs so I think the number is just being spoofed. Google searches suggest this is possible.

We called BT 3 months ago but they seemed unable to locate any issue.

Has anyone heard of this issue or been able to get BT to resolve same.

[imjolly]

If your mother phone number is being spoofed by hackers then there is currently nothing any phone provider can do about it. Your mother could always request a number change but probably just cause your mother more confusion

[Keith_Beddoe]

@David761 

A call blocking phone may be the best solution. then she only has to answer calls from those people that she knows.

The only way to stop the calls getting through, is to use a phone which uses Call Guardian, like the BT4600.

https://www.bt.com/help/user-guides/phones/landline-phones/cordless-phones-with-answer-machine/bt460...

The BT4600 phone will block all unknown numbers, and only allow numbers through that are stored in the phone`s directory. Other callers will be asked to announce themselves first, or can be just sent to answerphone instead.

[David761]

Thank you. It's a bit disappointing that BT wouldn't be able to do anything.
She has had the same number for likely 60 years so she would not want to go through a number change.

[David761]

@Keith_Beddoe    Thank you for the response. She is not so bothered by the occasional call back but rather not being able to understand how her phone number is being used.

[Keith_Beddoe]

@David761 

Her number is being spoofed, which is quite easy if the person doing it is using VOIP on a network that does not validate the call origin.

There is nothing BT or any provider can do, as they are obliged to deliver the call to its destination.

The solution I suggested, of the BT4600 phone, means she could only allow selected calls to go straight through to her phone.

[licquorice]

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@David761 wrote:
Thank you. It's a bit disappointing that BT wouldn't be able to do anything.
She has had the same number for likely 60 years so she would not want to go through a number change.

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Unfortunately any number can be spoofed from anywhere in the world, and thus its a worldwide problem that is impossible to crack by any telco.

[iniltous]

In this case the call ( obviously ) wasnt made from your relatives ‘line’ , scammers can ‘present’ any number they like when they make a call from wherever they are ( probably not on the same continent ) , so calling a number and making it look like the call originated from the  same number is quite common , and actually makes sense ( from the scammers point of view ) if the call went unanswered, and that person  used 1471 to check the last number to have called them , and it’s  their own number read back , they would simply assume it’s an error , not an attempted scam.

A few days ago , I received a call on my landline , it is rare to receive an incoming call and on the odd occasion it does ‘ring’ it’s  normally a number I recognise, any I don’t recognise, I chose to answer or simply let the phone  ring  ( I always look at the CLI display , calling line identity ) in this case it was the same STD code and the first 3 numbers of the number were the same but the last 3 were different, I though potentially a wrong number , the AVR when I answered was ‘ this is a call from your bank’ ,not even the name of a  bank  , laughable really, I hung up .

[WSH]

Personally, if I don’t recognise the number, I let the answer phone answer it.  If it sounds legit I can pick up and interrupt but 99% of the time scammers don’t bother to leave a message, they just hang up.  Anyone legitimate/important would leave a message, of course.

[PixieChaser]

They don't just spoof private numbers. I had a call that was supposed to be a legit HSBC number but the person on the other side was awkward and sketchy as hell. They were trying to get me to give them my personal info but I got suspicious so put the phone down. Later, I did some research online and apparently it is quite a common scam and multiple people have been reporting it over the years. So long as you don't hand out your private info over the phone, you should be safe.