Is there a new phone scam going around?

scrotist

It's the second time in the last few weeks that somebody called and said "Hello, I got a missed call from this number".

I definitely never called them. The most recent one today was a Cork accent, so it's not some foreign mafia gang or something.

I can't figure out what the potential scam is.

Unless my phone number was hijacked somehow? And some criminals are using my number to scam other people?

Has this happened to anyone else?

artanevilla

Yeah scammer will spoof and random phone number that looks Irish, for example 087 123 4567. If you don't answer it shows as a missed call so you ring back but you ring back the real number.

I've been the ringer before where I rang back and they hadn't called me.

Grayson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121452465#Comment_121452465

In the period of a few weeks I got about 10 calls from random people. Every time asking why I'd called. I explained that it was a scammer that was just using my number to mask their calls.

On all the spam calls I receive they always leave a robotic voicemail so I don't call back. And I'd be unlikely to anyway.

Leg End Reject

I've had this happen a few times too, only one person seemed to believe I hadn't called them.

Should ring Joe Duffy on Liveline to report any sophisticated scam 😉

AllForIt

Yes I've had this one starting about 3 weeks ago. This thread is the first I've heard about it online, although the last guy who 'called me back' did say to me my number must have been 'cloned', so he knew about this particular scam. He did say that once the cloning has been identified that would be the end of it. Don't know how that works, that's all I know.

GerardKeating

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121453883#Comment_121453883

Some people get quite shirty in this, either they think you are a scammer, or think you are accusing them of "something".

Quin_Dub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058325613/is-there-a-new-phone-scam-going-around

It's a scam , but not for you as it were.

As others have said , scammers are spoofing real numbers to make calls - All the usual suspects , "Windows Support" , "Amazon Prime" etc. etc.

However sometimes those scam calls don't get answered and people dial back the missed call - which is what you are answering.

The people calling you are not the scammers..

I get this kind of call 2 or 3 times a month sadly.

Spoke to my mobile provider and they said there were aware of the phenomenon but there was nothing they could really do about it.

Idle Passerby

This happened to me yesterday. Phone rang and I didn't reach it in time so I called back and it was an Irish woman who said she hadn't called me but she'd been getting phonecalls all day from people saying they'd missed her call. Immediately after the call I got a weird pop up asking for permission to access my android device. Very odd.

buried

The whole sate apparatus is a scam. It isn't just designated to your phone.

niallpatrick

I'd need to check through my dual sim phone, majority of scam calls for myself it seems are spoofed through watts app. My phone has call screening, number not known and isn't blocked it tells me what the area code is and where so I know not to answer.

waynescales1

My number is currently being spoofed by scammers, keep getting calls back from people who have missed calls from "me". Second time the scammers have used my number, happened before about a year or two ago.

Could have sworn I read somewhere that the technology exists to prevent this from happening but the network providers won't implement it for some reason...

Buffman

It's not new, been going on for at least 2 years now. The scammers stopped calling from spoofed foreign numbers and switched to spoofed Irish numbers as they assume that people will be more likely to answer an Irish number.

Unfortunately this means that the innocent party whose number they spoofed gets the backlash. It happened me so often for a period that I actually changed my voicemail greeting to include 'if you've received an unsolicited call from this number it was a scammer spoofing my number, ignore it'.

Atlantic Dawn

The money mules allowing their bank accounts to be used to transfer the money from these scams in to should be getting 6 months in jail to kill this off.