My phone number being spoofed and calling others?

daveyjoe

I have just got a third call in a week from someone claiming that they got a missed call from me. The people who rang me seemed like they legitimately got a missed call from me, 2 Irish men with different accents and a Polish girl. I have never called any of them.

I checked outgoing calls on my phone and I haven't pocket-dialled any of these people or anything like that.

Does anybody know what might be going on here? It sounds like a spam caller might be spoofing using my phone number. Has anybody got any insight into this or experienced it before?

This is getting to be an ever more common phenomenon. There are sites on the Dark Web where you can avail of various phone number spoofing services. I did a harmless experiment once where I had a fake text from an US number sent to my phone some hours later. I actually got completely distracted by something else happening around me, and had put the little experiment out of my mind, then briefly being a bit p1ssed off by yet another fake text arriving on my phone… only to recall I had it sent to myself!

The criminals who avail of spoofing services for deception have typically used such a service to make it appear yours (and any number of people’s numbers) is their number, and have tried phoning a range of random numbers with the aim of receiver answering and falling for a scam like “your computer is broken let me help fix it” or “this is the bank calling” etc.

If you want to actually see scamming services as a matter of education, go to the Dark Web, you can download a TOR app which gives access. The Dark Web tends to be very slow as the traffic routes over a series of random servers all over the globe.

drunkmonkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334744/my-phone-number-being-spoofed-and-calling-others

There's nothing you can really do only ride it out if you don't want to change your phone number, it should stop after a while. It's pretty common.

If your getting any of those calls yourself, don't say anything when you answer the phone then the auto dialler doesn't connect on their side and you eventually stop getting calls.

ItHurtsWhenIP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058334744/my-phone-number-being-spoofed-and-calling-others

As others have mentioned, your number has been "spoofed" (impersonated) by some scammers. It's quite trivial to do, as mobile network security is a hot mess.

I had a call the other day, which showed up as a named business (something in the arts and crafts industry), but as with any number I don't recognise, I didn't answer it. On my voicemail a while later was a message from a robo-caller speaking to me in Chinese (I presume). 🙄

If you want to check a well-respected data breach site, go to:

https://www.haveibeenpwned.com

and put in your mobile number in full international format (i.e. if your number is 087-123-4567, then put it into the search as 00353871234567). I suspect you will find that you were in the Facebook data breach from 2021.

That site is excellent for checking other data breaches, if you put in any of your email addresses into the search it will tell you what other breaches you may have had data exposed in.

Glaceon

I had someone call me today to say that they missed a call from me. I didn't call them so I presume my number is being spoofed.

I think I'm going to change my number at this stage, it's on that HIBP list thanks to the Facebook hack. So I can't see there being an end to me getting these calls.

ItHurtsWhenIP

@Glaceon ... it's on that HIBP list thanks to the Facebook hack.

Your number, my number and 1.5m other Irish numbers were in that breach. If you go for another number, you may get one that is recycled and might also have been in that breach too ... which would suck big time 🤷‍♂️ ... mind you, if you can check a new number on HIBP before they allocate it to you, that would be good.

I seem to get the calls in batches and then things go quiet for a while ... several weeks sometimes.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121732417#Comment_121732417

I know that’s the consensus on here but my wife never gets these calls so I’m finding it hard to believe that it’s random.

whomitconcerns

Unless your getting tons of calls every day it's not worth trying to solve and won't cost you anything

Mitzy

It has happened to me also. I have had 3 calls in the past couple of weeks from people "returning" my call. Not enough traffic to justify changing the phone number I have had for over 20 years.

Necro

Happened me in September/October for about 5 weeks or so, three or four calls a week people claiming I'd called them same as above.

It's stopped since then though. It does end, but it's incredibly frustrating.