Scam call from own number

[vik9876]

My elderly mother has only a landline (not switched to Digital Voice yet) and I manage her BT account with Power of Attorney.  She's been getting calls from, apparently, her own landline number.  One call left a message on 1571 to say "This is BT Directory Enquiries, your bill is ready".  I logged on to her BT account online, and I can see in the recent calls she's had several calls apparently from her own number.  

I presume this is a scam of some sort?  Can the scammers spoof her number when they call her?  I've blacklisted her number with Call Protect for now, I presume it's OK to do this as she can't legitimately get calls from her own number? 

Thanks 

[jac_95]

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[iniltous]

Outgoing calls to to your own number would get busy tone unless a call minder service was set to take messages when the line is busy , if calls to that number were from someone spoofing the number they were calling , because the calls were not originated from your mothers line they shouldn’t appear on the outgoing call list , so it does suggest the line called itself and we’re answered by 1571 .
It’s difficult to see how it’s a scam , although if the calls were not answered ( apart from the 1571 ) it’s impossible to know if it’s an attempted scam , someone leaving a message stating ‘BT Directory Enquiries stating your bill is ready ‘ seems an odd message to leave , if it were a scam .
It may be worth checking the number on the line is correct , dialing 17070 should get a message along the lines of ‘This circuit is defined as 01***,******, line test services’ if the number read out isn’t the one expected your mothers line is crossed with another line , but that still wouldn’t explain why outgoing calls on the bill show calls made to herself .

[vik9876]

but that still wouldn’t explain why outgoing calls on the bill show calls made to herself 

Her number is showing on the incoming calls list in Call Protect. but not as an outgoing call in her call usage.  2 days ago Call Protect lists two incoming calls from her own number.  I think her number is correct because I call her all the time on the same number as always.   I assumed that the message about the bill being ready was going to invite her to ring a fraudulent number and pay a bill - i.e. phishing for credit card details.

[iniltous · Accepted solution]

OK , it’s the incoming call protect list that shows the number , not the recent outgoing calls list on the BT site , scammers do spoof calling line identity so showing the same number they are calling as the originator CLI is easily done ,

scammers employ the same technology as legitimate call centres so a call made by them , answered by the potential ‘victim’  (as well as calls answered by an answering /  intercept service like call protect ) will not have a scammer waiting to speak to the person, in effect they play a recorded message something like , your bill is overdue , then inviting the recipient to ‘press 1’  that way only answered calls with potential to scam ( because the person responded to the message and pressed 1 ) are passed to the ‘human’ scammer , the scammers recorded message  could be recorded by the answer /intercept service where as an unanswered call or one where the call was answered but the called party immediately hung up , realising it’s a scam , the only ‘evidence’ of the call would be by using 1471 to check the number , which would be the persons own number …so it quite likely was a scammer .

[vik9876]

OK that's basically what I thought - many thanks for the details on how these scammers work, that's useful to know.

[Cru]

My brother and I are receiving calls to our home phones showing as Nottingham numbers where we live but are claiming to be from Amazon with the usual fraudulent activity on the account, only started happening since we changed to VOIP lines. More of an annoyance factor than anything.

[iniltous]

Getting a scam call attempt after the change to VoIP is nothing more than a coincidence, if you were still on PSTN the call would still have been made by them .

In some way , with a little thought , this type of spoofing should be less successful than using a spoofed 0800 number , I received a scam call recently , supposedly from ‘my bank’ , the spoofed number was almost the same as my number , same STD code ( 01*** ) and the first 3 digits of the number were the same , just the last 3 digits were different, having a basic understanding of the way numbers are geographically allocated, after being amused by the ridiculousness of the attempt, I thought , if genuine that had been the number they wanted me to believe has made the call , it would  put the caller within a very small geographical area to me  ( the same local exchange area as me ) and my bank has no branch or office anywhere near me , in that case a spoofed 0800 number would have been more believable