Fake Call

exaisle

Hi All,
Just got a fake call from a number that showed up as 087 *** 4586 (I've deleted the first three digits because they are the same as my number so if your number begins 123, you might get a call from a number that appears to have the same first three numbers as yours) purporting to be from an Garda Siochana, threatening to cancel my PPS number. Good luck with that one lads....

Anyhow, just in case anybody else gets a call from an unrecognised number, just reject the call. If it's genuine, I dare say they'll call again. If not, more likely they'll just try somebody else.

E.

Johnboy1951

I don't reject a call because I do not recognise the calling number.
I can easily hang up if it is an undesirable call.

mondeoman72

I got two of them yesterday. I laughed and told them to f..k off.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

These calls are becoming rather irritating. I’ve actually decided that I might as well get rid of my landline number because of them.

If the telecoms companies don’t start doing something to filter them, I could see calls going mostly to FaceTime and WhatsApp, where at least you can verify to some degree who’s getting though to you.

I’d say give it 5 years and making voice calls though the telephone infrastructure will be much less common, much like IM has replaced text messages and certainly short emails.

Johnboy1951

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

These calls are becoming rather irritating. I’ve actually decided that I might as well get rid of my landline number because of them.

If the telecoms companies don’t start doing something to filter them, I could see calls going mostly to FaceTime and WhatsApp, where at least you can verify to some degree who’s getting though to you.

I’d say give it 5 years and making voice calls though the telephone infrastructure will be much less common, much like IM has replaced text messages and certainly short emails.

Strange I do not get such calls to my 'landline' number to any degree.
I have vague recollection of putting the number on some list to help reduce such calls - many years ago!

looksee

I just got one on my mobile from a mobile number that was 089 xxx 6668 - yes the xxx is the same three numbers as my own number.

I don't know how they expect to take anyone in, synthetic female voice with an American accent 'Hello this call is from Garda Shee-hawna (it sounded all wrong) we have'.... as I rang off.

Ages since I got a spoof call, I wonder what the significance of the matching numbers is?

jamesbondings

i also had one today - same 6 digits at the start ....however, it was from a guy who said he missed my call.
He introduced himself and upon asking he told me where he worked and all, i told him i never rang, nor would i have a need for his services I have no idea how or why he got a missed call from me! Very strange.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

I’m getting up to 9 a day to the landline number, which is VoIP these days. They can talk to the Fritz Box voicemail. I’m not taking any more calls, as hardly anyone rings my landline anyway. I think I’ve received maybe 2 real calls on it in the last 12 months.

So I’ll be closing it.

CardBordWindow

I'm after getting 3 of them today.
087 xxx5586
087 xxx4419
087 xxx6215

Very annoying at this stage. So obviously fake.

exaisle

Just got another, purportedly from XXX 4601 which I rejected. Both numbers now in blocked list.

I'm kinda surprised that the Telecommunications Regulator hasn't got a better handle on this - presumably, all of these calls are coming from the same source.

65535

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

I’m getting up to 9 a day to the landline number, which is VoIP these days. They can talk to the Fritz Box voicemail. I’m not taking any more calls, as hardly anyone rings my landline anyway. I think I’ve received maybe 2 real calls on it in the last 12 months.

So I’ll be closing it.

Add a VoIP circuit yourself and divert those calls to "lenny"
Details at

http://192.34.63.107/


Some samples on YouTube - search for Lenny

Johnboy1951

65535 wrote: »

Add a VoIP circuit yourself and divert those calls to "lenny"
Details at

http://192.34.63.107/


Some samples on YouTube - search for Lenny

I tried ringing Lenny, but he would not say anything to me ....... most frustrating!

sip:lenny@lenny.voiceopia.net

Very disappointed

I did spend a little time listening to other calls though ...

http://192.34.63.107/audio/


.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

I’d a call from someone in Ireland who missed a call from me and had a very similar number.

I think they received a call from a faked caller ID that was using my number.

This stuff is getting very annoying.

65535

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I tried ringing Lenny, but he would not say anything to me ....... most frustrating!

sip:lenny@lenny.voiceopia.net

Very disappointed

I did spend a little time listening to other calls though ...

http://192.34.63.107/audio/


.

If you even make a noise he then assumes that you have answered him and he goes on to the next part of his conversation !

L1011

65535 wrote: »

If you even make a noise he then assumes that you have answered him and he goes on to the next part of his conversation !

Much the same as making a noise at the pub bore, so quite realistic.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Lenny scripts are wirtten to to interact with a sales pitch from a pushy call centre agent, not a random caller.

It won't work as well with someone just calling it to say hello.

Lewis_Benson

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I tried ringing Lenny, but he would not say anything to me ....... most frustrating!

sip:lenny@lenny.voiceopia.net

Very disappointed

I did spend a little time listening to other calls though ...

http://192.34.63.107/audio/


.

It seems some genuine calls are getting routed to lenny....
Here's one example from kbc bank.

There were a number of calls also from an isp who were responding to alerts relating to proactive alarms.

Johnboy1951

Lewis_Benson wrote: »

It seems some genuine calls are getting routed to lenny....
Here's one example from kbc bank.

There were a number of calls also from an isp who were responding to alerts relating to proactive alarms.

Yes I heard several from KBC.ie ....... really surprising how callers do not 'cop on'.

radiospan

Got a call today from 085782691

A fake number which can't be called back. Looks like an 085 Irish mobile number at first, but it has 9 digits instead of 10.

LenWoods

I got three of these yesterday I'm 089 and the three calls were 089 followed by three digits same as my own number; then random numbers after that;
All three calls had different numbers after the prefix and first three digits,

I put my phone in to flight mode then; as nobody uses my number to call directly;
I mainly use the phone for WhatsApp messenger and internet; I don't use Facebook or have many friends, work six days per week in the pharmaceutical industry and spend time off with family.

Pinch Flat

I've got a good few lately. Some are like irish numbers but with an extra digit. Answered one yesterday innocently and got an automated voice about a €700 refund from ebay, hung straight up and number blocked.

Mav11

Got one just now from an 087 number, "Dept of Social Protection" they said. I just hung up.

Tr_18

Got a 1 second phone call from Azerbaijan this morning. Operator must have noticed they forgot to reroute through an 'Irish' number and hung up ASAP.
+994662183333

Be right back

Got three calls from 3 087 numbers over the last 3 days. I didn't answer any. No voice mail left. So numbers are blocked!

Mav11

And another one just now!!

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Airplane mode usually switches off all radio signals except Bluetooth. So WhatsApp won’t work.

If you want to just switch off all calls use the silence unknown numbers options on your phone or divert to your voicemail **21* 08X 5 XXX XXXX #

To cancel #21#

Be right back

Be right back wrote: »

Got three calls from 3 087 numbers over the last 3 days. I didn't answer any. No voice mail left. So numbers are blocked!

And again! Would they just p off?!

Lewis_Benson

Be right back wrote: »

And again! Would they just p off?!

They are using autodialers....
they wont P off.

sheesh

jamesbondings wrote: »

i also had one today - same 6 digits at the start ....however, it was from a guy who said he missed my call.
He introduced himself and upon asking he told me where he worked and all, i told him i never rang, nor would i have a need for his services I have no idea how or why he got a missed call from me! Very strange.

I got one of those today! has someone hacked the telephone system?

ClosedAccountFuzzy

tphase wrote: »

Airplane mode turns off all radio signals including bluetooth.

However you can turn on both wifi and bluetooth after you've switched to airplane mode, the phone radio will remain off

It doesn't actually. On many phones, notably Apple, it leaves Bluetooth on.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204234

Most modern headphones are Bluetooth and the radio signals involved are too low powered to be of concern to aircraft systems. The issue is more about relatively much stronger UHF & GHz frequencies from mobiles for connecting to cellular towers.

iPhones will only turn Bluetooth off in Airplane mode if it is it's manually done & then remember that in future. The default airplane mode leaves it on.

Changes happened when phones stopped shipping with headphone jacks.

Super-Rush

Somehow I've started to get these calls lately.

The numbers I've been getting calls from are trying to look like Bank Of Ireland.

When the phone rings my phone displays the number as 0353766801772.

I never answer and always decline and when i get e text to say I've missed a call, it displays the number as 076 680 1772. Very feckin crafty and would catch out an older person every time.

eggy81

I was on hols in cork last week and started getting the one from department of social protection literally every 30 minutes. I ignored several until I eventually pressed 1 and got a lad from the Middle East on the other end. I tried to pretend I worked for department of social protection and was tracing the call but just lost my temper and gave him a volley of abuse. The facade dropped quickly as he responded in kind.

Result is I haven’t had a call since then. I had received them sporadically in the previous couple of months and that’s the first time I engaged.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Super-Rush wrote: »

Somehow I've started to get these calls lately.

The numbers I've been getting calls from are trying to look like Bank Of Ireland.

When the phone rings my phone displays the number as 0353766801772.

I never answer and always decline and when i get e text to say I've missed a call, it displays the number as 076 680 1772. Very feckin crafty and would catch out an older person every time.

The missed call text is possibly generated by your voicemail service. It will display the text as if it's from the number you've missed the call from.

That call is full blown inbound fraud with a VoIP number that will accept calls.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

tphase wrote: »

I'll take your word for it but on every android phone I've used, it turns off all radios. Not everyone uses apple devices

Yeah but that's way things are going with Bluetooth headphones in general - technology changes and airline regulations.

That 076 call however is a full blown fraudulent VoIP Number - I would make a formal complaint to ComReg about it.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

It would be worth alerting the Bank of Ireland helpdesk about that 076 number.

ComReg should be going after providers hosting those kinds of numbers though. If there's a report of fraud, it's not that hard to just get someone at the VoIP provider to call the number and investigate and if it's fraudulent activity the service should be suspended.

If they don't do that, I think they should lose their licence to interconnect with the telephone network.

Be right back

Got a missed call from a Dublin number. Googled it and it's apparently from someone claiming to be from Vodafone.

65535

No point in contacting Comreg about 076/083/085/086/087/089 or indeed any number.
These scammers are located outside the country, they use terminating VoIP software that allows them to use ANY Caller Line Identity (CLI).
Essentially there is nothing that Comreg can do about these calls.

Glaceon

sheesh wrote: »

I got one of those today! has someone hacked the telephone system?

No, but there's nothing in place to stop them spoofing the caller ID to whatever number they like. Most likely, that person got a call that had spoofed your number so they called it back.

Flinty997

65535 wrote: »

No point in contacting Comreg about 076/083/085/086/087/089 or indeed any number.
These scammers are located outside the country, they use terminating VoIP software that allows them to use ANY Caller Line Identity (CLI).
Essentially there is nothing that Comreg can do about these calls.

If there no way to track a large volume of calls all coming from the same location? Even internationally.

Darc19

Flinty997 wrote: »

If there no way to track a large volume of calls all coming from the same location? Even internationally.

No

Last year over $500m was scammed from Americans and over $400m from Australians.

Here's an excellent explanation from the Irish Times today

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/what-is-happening-with-the-plague-of-scam-phone-calls-1.4609955

Flinty997

Darc19 wrote: »

No

Last year over $500m was scammed from Americans and over $400m from Australians.

Here's an excellent explanation from the Irish Times today

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/what-is-happening-with-the-plague-of-scam-phone-calls-1.4609955

It's not true that's its not possible to shut them down. It's just hard and too many vested interests don't want to.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-so-many-spam-robocalls-how-to-stop-them-2021-3


"..."When India and Pakistan shut down, you saw an instant decline in robocalls," ...."

65535

Years ago without CLI you were always wary of who was calling.
If someone calls looking for money/offering money - it is too good to be true.

Software to generate Voice over Internet - any telephone number
https://youtu.be/a6oEG1zFPsE

Also to get up to speed on what is happening - search for 'Jim Browning' on youtube

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Flinty997 wrote: »

If there no way to track a large volume of calls all coming from the same location? Even internationally.

They buy VoIP services, likely using stolen credit and debit card details. They may have thousands of accounts in many locations, including here.

They then route calls in reasonable looking volumes through each, so they don’t necessarily get caught by any simple filters and the VoIP companies don’t know it’s not legitimate traffic.

What they could do though is block calls originating from outside Ireland displaying a +353 Caller ID or at least strip the caller ID off it. If the call came up as INVALID ID, you might not answer it.

Flinty997

Seems like there's nothing they can do here. But they can go after the companies who use these services. They can target the gateway carriers. They can also pattern match the robocalls. Looks like progress is being made. But it's early days.

ClosedAccountFuzzy

They need to target them at EU or even ITU level.

The calls aren’t likely to be coming in through any of the traditional telcos. They’re likely coming in on small VoIP carriers.

You can buy numbers almost anywhere in the world on those services. It’ll have to be regulated a lot better at international level.

Johnboy1951

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

They buy VoIP services, likely using stolen credit and debit card details. They may have thousands of accounts in many locations, including here.

They then route calls in reasonable looking volumes through each, so they don’t necessarily get caught by any simple filters and the VoIP companies don’t know it’s not legitimate traffic.

What they could do though is block calls originating from outside Ireland displaying a +353 Caller ID or at least strip the caller ID off it. If the call came up as INVALID ID, you might not answer it.

If when on holiday I try to use my VOIP calling my call would be shown as 'invalid'?

or ....... someone using a VOIP service based outside Ireland would have their calls 'marked' as invalid in place of their genuine number even when calling from within Ireland?

ClosedAccountFuzzy

Only if you set your caller ID to fake an Irish landline or mobile number.

If you’re using an Irish or Irish licence holding VoIP service while abroad, it’s a completely legitimate user of Irish caller IDs & most likely has a soft switch & gateway into the public networks here. That’s not an issue.

They’re going to have to sort this out though, as it’s just not acceptable to have random people being able to pose as any phone number.

A VoIP service should be restricted to using caller ID in blocks of numbers that it owns, or numbers that have been ported to it. If they present any other number, the caller ID at the very least should be stripped out.

If some random international VoIP service decided to use your Caller ID, it shouldn’t be possible.

As it stands now, if someone had access to a VoIP service like that and knew your mobile number, they could make calls that for all intents and purposes appear to be from you.

Absolutely no overseas VoIP service should be presenting Irish mobile numbers for example.

No non Irish licensed VoIP service should be presenting Irish phone numbers either.

That’s a ridiculously insecure system

Johnboy1951

FuzzyThinking wrote: »

Only if you set your caller ID to fake an Irish landline or mobile number.

From what is described above it would also affect genuine numbers.

They’re going to have to sort this out as it’s just not acceptable to have random people being able to pose as any phone number.

Yes something needs to be done, but not something that is going to negatively affect genuine users.

A VoIP service should be restricted to using caller ID in blocs that it owns. If they present any other number, the caller ID at the very least should be blocked.

The VOIP service does not own my number.
I have a choice of using whatever VOIP service I wish, in any country in the world, and it is I who has control of the number used as Caller ID. This is as it should be.

What could be done is that all operators connecting to Irish numbers (even from within Ireland) could be required to authenticate the caller ID before it can be used.

If this was done, with a total ban on the service if they fail to do so, then rogue operators could be eliminated from calling Irish numbers.

That might initially affect a small number of genuine users of a rogue service, but as often happens with other services, a list of banned services/operators is easily published to warn genuine customers before they sign up for the service.

Kill off the rogue operators. Do not negatively affect the customers.

EDIT:

Absolutely no overseas VoIP service should be presenting Irish mobile numbers for example.

No non Irish licensed VoIP service should be presenting Irish phone numbers either.

That’s a ridiculously insecure system

It is the above that is ridiculous!

ClosedAccountFuzzy

You should not be able to set your caller ID to a number you do not own (have rights to use).

VoIP companies rent blocs of numbers which are licensed though regulators like ComReg, or they lease number ranges from larger telcos who hold those licences.

If they are allowing users to just set their caller ID to anything at all, that should be a flat breech of terms of use and they should lose the ability to present any numbers at all. Just delete the caller ID field in the signalling.

A telco who has no Irish number ranges or licence here has no business presenting +353 numbers and nobody other than an Irish mobile operator should be presenting Irish mobile numbers. They cannot possibly own them or have rights to use them.

You do not own any of your numbers. They assigned by a regulator to a telco that has a licence to use them.

There’s no legitimate use case scenario where you should be able to display your outgoing caller ID as absolutely anything you like and inbound calls from telcos that have no licence here but are displaying +353 should not be allowed to send that caller ID.

As it stands you could display your phone number as absolutely anything from a random number, to a private landline or mobile belonging to someone else, to an emergency service or state service in a country you’ve nothing to do with.

I mean why do you think you should have the right to display my mobile number or the French Revenue Commissioners?

Presenting someone else’s phone number is identify theft. There’s no other way of explaining it.

It is a ludicrous mess that is facilitating widespread fraud and rendering caller ID totally untrustworthy.

I would also add that most VoIP services, at least responsibly operated ones, do not allow you to set your caller ID to numbers that you do not have rights to use. You typically can only pick from your list of numbers, not just enter any string of digits as your outbound ID.

There is massive fraud going on, worth millions of $/€ and it is being in large part facilitated by the ability to present entirely spoofed numbers. The system has to be made much more secure.

If the telcos and regulators don’t tackle it, more people will simply give up on PSTN and mobile services and migrate to “over the top” VoIP services linked to IM - WhatsApp, FaceTime, Telegram, Signal etc all already have a large % of the market. They offer far more security, verify that an inbound call is who it claims to brand can easily block spam.

Failure to tackle this will simply mean the voice telephone network will be as useless as spammy email services & that will just mean a whole load more abandoned services & lack of revenue for telcos.

PintOfView

From end of June 2021, just gone, both the US FCC and Canadian equivalent (CRTC) require telecom providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN on the IP portions of their networks.

This requires additional information to be added to the VOIP call, which can be used by upstream systems to decide whether or not to trust the Caller ID.
see the following
URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN"]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN[/URL and
URL="https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication"]https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication[/URL
URL="http://apps.cept.org/eccnews/may-2020/stir_shaken.html"]http://apps.cept.org/eccnews/may-2020/stir_shaken.html[/URL

"The STIR/SHAKEN framework, an industry-standard caller ID authentication technology, is a set of technical standards and protocols that allow for the authentication and verification of caller ID information for calls carried over Internet Protocol (IP) networks"

"FCC rules require providers to implement STIR/SHAKEN in the Internet Protocol (IP) portions of their networks by June 30, 2021, so that Americans can benefit from this important technology and start to have faith in their phone calls again"

From the third link above it doesn't look like this, or an equivalent, is being implemented in the EU or Ireland just yet, but is being looked at!

I've seen a definite rise is these nuisance calls in the past couple of months (international number that ring once / Dept of Social Protection / calls from 087 & 086 numbers / etc.). It's possible some of this may be due to the US 'market' becoming more difficult to reach!

It's one thing that these calls are annoying, and a nuisance to people who don't fall for their spiel.
However if it's worth setting up call centres to do this on an industrial scale then it must mean that
a percentage of people (some probably elderly) are being scammed out of cash,
with the potential to affect not just their purse, but also their sense of security, and even their mental health.
(as someone mentioned already, check out 'Jim Browning' on youtube)

It doesn't seem like Comreg can do anything by themselves, as any solution needs to be implemented by the telecom operators.
However emailing Comreg might encourage them to put some pressure on those who can do something to help.
Emailing our local politicians to highlight the problem might also help to put some pressure where it's needed at an EU level!

Darc19

Flinty997 wrote: »

It's not true that's its not possible to shut them down. It's just hard and too many vested interests don't want to.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-so-many-spam-robocalls-how-to-stop-them-2021-3


"..."When India and Pakistan shut down, you saw an instant decline in robocalls," ...."

They are spam calls made by companies, the call people are getting are scam calls made by fraudsters.

There is currently no way to stop fraudsters as places like Russia where many originate will not cooperate