Extra safeguards to combat plague of cold-call scammers

MILLIONS of cold calls from “spoofed”’ numbers will be prevented under a crackdown in which phone companies face fines if they allow scammers to hide their true number with an invalid one.

Under rules being introduced by Ofcom, the telecoms regulator, coming into force on Oct 1, phone companies must take steps to identify and block calls that carry invalid numbers so they do not get through to consumers.

Invalid numbers are commonly used by scammers and include those with too many or too few digits, as well as those with made-up dialling codes.

Ofcom will also be able to take back blocks of numbers from communications providers if they are found to have been systematically used to cause harm or anxiety, such as to make nuisance calls or to perpetrate scams or fraud. It comes after this newspaper reported that nearly half of landline calls made to elderly and vulnerable people are from cold callers.

As many as a million people estimated to be on so-called “suckers lists” are being bombarded with up to 150 nuisance and scam calls a month in a cold-calling epidemic that is sweeping the UK, figures from Truecall show.

The analysis of millions of calls, dating back four years, revealed a recent rise in the number of foreign calls being “spoofed” so they appear to come from UK mobile numbers.

Cold callers know potential victims are more likely to accept calls from mobiles so they use so-called “Voiceover IP” technology to send calls over the internet, which lets them change the number.

Ofcom says the number of spoofed calls received by UK landlines is around a billion per year, and about a quarter of the total 3.9 billion nuisance calls are received by UK landlines.

It said the crackdown would prevent some but not all spoof calls, as calls using legitimate working numbers could still be made.

Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom’s consumer group director, said: “It’s important that our rules keep pace with developments in the communications market, and continue to give consumers protection. Our rules will help to protect people against nuisance calls and support our work to identify and punish those responsible. We’ve also introduced special protections to ensure that vulnerable people are fairly treated and that customer complaints are dealt with promptly and effectively.”