Robo-call spree targeting Kiwis

If you have been hung up on by a mystery international number, don’t call back.

New Zealand is ‘‘flavour of the month’’ for robo-dialling scam calls, which may try to draw premium calling fees out of unsuspecting punters.

Telco companies are divided on the type of scam being employed, but are advising anyone who has returned a dropped call to check their phone bill.

2degrees spokesman Paul Brislen said a robo-calling piece of software was churning through the New Zealand phone book.

‘‘That’s why you get them in waves, and that’s why suddenly New Zealand is the flavour of the month, because somebody has got to +64.’’

Brislen said many were premium call scams, called the ‘‘wangiri scam’’ by the industry. Such scams aim to have a person return the hung-up call, routing them through the equivalent of a 0900 number and charging them an exorbitant fee.

‘‘You call them back, and nothing happens and you’re on the line for about 30 seconds and then you get a bill.’’ Brislen did not know how much people were being charged for the calls, but with 0900 calls ‘‘it could be anywhere from $1 a minute to $50 a minute’’.

The calls – from countries such as Bangladesh, Morocco, Canada, Britain and Cuba – might not be from the location indicated by the international calling code, as often internetbased phones are used to mask the true location.

‘‘You could be calling from Madagascar and calling from a New Zealand number. It’s hard to track the numbers as we can’t tell where they’re coming from, you can’t block them and you can’t tell how much people can get charged until it’s too late.’’

People who have returned such calls should check their bill, and contact their phone company to contest the charge. Brislen said 2degrees did not have a blanket policy for such calls, and would talk to affected customers on a case by case basis.

Spark confirmed a surge in scam calls in recent months, but had not received reports on the wangiri scam specifically.

The hang-up calls were likely to be scammers using auto-dialling software to ring en masse; the silence due to either the dialler failing to pick up ‘‘human activity’’, or the caller failing to reach the connection in time, Spark spokeswoman Cassie Arauzo said.

Often these callers purported to call from a recognisable company or to have investment opportunities, but return calls accrued international calling charges.

Wangiri scams tended to hang up after a few rings, generating a missed call to be returned, she said.

‘‘That doesn’t mean wangiri calls are definitely not happening – we can’t see it on our end. But if customers are getting charged premium rates we do encourage them to report it to us,’’ Arauzo said.