How to avoid becoming a victim of number spoofing
Smartphones have been capable of displaying caller identification ever since the Nokia 1011 introduced the concept of multi-line screens in the early 1990s.
More recently, it’s become commonplace for caller ID to be prominently displayed on-screen as a call is coming in.
The Android operating system even attempts to distinguish legitimate callers from bogus ones, flagging up numbers which have a bad reputation with a Suspected Spam warning.
However, all is not as it seems.
Your number’s up (on the screen)
Criminals have developed a way to spoof the details that display on smartphone screens, lending a veneer of authenticity to their attempts at defrauding us.
They identify a number associated with a legitimate enterprise and enter it into a software package that displays this number as the contact info for every subsequent outbound call.
It’s often the main inbound telephone number for a bank or building society, since people might identify this from literature, bank cards or even calls they’ve made to the firm.
It’s been claimed that number spoofing massively increases the chance of success for phone scams, especially in tandem with a clever script which plays on a sense of urgency.
People feel panicked into handing over sensitive information if there’s an explicit sense that not doing so will have harmful consequences.
Ironically, the only risk lies in handing over the data that’s being requested, which will almost immediately be used to steal money or commit fraud.
Over 8,000 impersonation scams were reported in the UK between January and June this year – 50 per cent more than the comparable figure for the first half of 2018.
Number spoofing scams are estimated to have netted the ne’er-do-wells behind them an estimated £56 million, according to figures from UK Finance.
Most depressingly of all, only around 30 per cent of money lost in this way is ever refunded. Victims are often held responsible for not being savvy enough to identify a scam.
So what you can you do to avoid contributing to the next half-yearly round of impersonation fraud figures?
How to avoid becoming a victim
These are our recommendations for staying safe when answering incoming calls, helping to stay out of the clutches of number-spoofing fraudsters:
- Never engage with an unsolicited call. No matter how urgent a situation is, there will always be time to hang up, draw breath, gather your thoughts and follow the next step…
- Search online for reports of similar activities. If a caller claims to be from a particular institution, calling for a specific reason, do a Google search to see if it’s a known scam.
- Tell them you’ll ring back. Hang up and ring the real company from a different number. Scammers may have seized control of the line they rang you on, hijacking outbound calls.
- Register with the Telephone Preference Service, go ex-directory, and keep your phone number hidden on social media accounts. These steps reduce the risk of being targeted.
- Use firms signed up to the Do Not Originate scheme. This stops incoming-only numbers being impersonated – HMRC spoofing halved two months after they joined the scheme.
It’s been claimed that by 2025, blockchain technology could ensure a specific phone number can’t be cloned or impersonated by anyone other than its registered owner.
Until this incorruptible public ledger (or an alternative system) is adopted, it’s best to approach incoming calls with a healthy dose of suspicion.
That’s especially true if an unsolicited call is financial in nature.