They call the phone from different numbers. What to do if an unfamiliar number calls. Who calls and hangs up, what are these unknown numbers?

As a rule, telephone numbers look like this: +, +, etc. If you answer such numbers, you can lose a large sum. Kirill Dubinin, an internal security specialist at the mobile operator Bite, tells Saturday about the intricacies of telephone fraud.

“At night I woke up from a call on my mobile phone, jumped up and my heart sank: I have elderly relatives abroad, and I immediately thought that something had happened to them. I saw a foreign number and immediately called back out of fear. At the other end I heard an incomprehensible hissing and crackling sound. I called back again and only then realized that I was calling from some strange number. My son arrived in the morning and said that the call was from Algeria. I don’t even know where this country is, and certainly no one can call me from there. Then I contacted my operator and explained the situation. The girl operator looked at the call, called the number and said it was a scam. In 18 seconds, 50 cents were withdrawn. But since this number is blacklisted, they compensate me. I know that my neighbors are also receiving calls, but I warned them not to answer the phone. Explain who deals with such matters and why it is impossible to find justice for them?

Latvian operators' clients mobile communications V last month really were subjected to a massive attack by international phone scammers. As a rule, they call people at night and send a short signal with the expectation that the person will call back.

The most important thing that users need to understand is that there is no need to call back anywhere,” explains Kirill Dubinin. - If you have relatives abroad, you need to write down their numbers in the phone’s memory and answer only familiar phones. Everything else is scam calls that are a big elaborate scheme by telecommunications organized crime groups. In other words, these are high-level phone thieves who scam people out of money in various ways. In general, for us, mobile operators, this is a real plague of the 21st century. Naturally, we are constantly inventing various ways fight it and prevent it. But scammers are not fools either, and every time they invent something new to get around our obstacles.

Quite simply, scammers make money by siphoning money from incoming calls - that is, when people call back an unfamiliar number. Let's remember those distant times when you had to pay for incoming calls and collect bonuses. To put it simply, methods of deception today are based on approximately the same old schemes. Therefore, the solution to the problem is simple: do not answer calls and do not call back!

But here’s the question: how do those same scammers abroad get a phone number from Latvia?

They don't get anything! Therefore, you don’t have to be afraid that your phone is in the criminal database,” explains the specialist. - Residents need to know that phone number- this is not your property or the property of the operator. It belongs to the state, and a database of all numbers is available at: numuri.lv. If you go to this address and enter your mobile number in the column, you will see which network services this number. How do criminals act? Using very simple computer program they generate user phone numbers of approximately one series in the thousands and begin sending out calls using a computer.

And finally, if you still called back from an unfamiliar number, and moreover, money was withdrawn from you, urgently contact your mobile operator and write a complaint. If it turns out that the calling number is on the blacklist of scammers, the company will return the money withdrawn from the account.

By the way, there is another dishonest trick that the Tele2 network talks about. Using text messages, scammers report an inheritance that a distant rich relative allegedly left to the owner of the phone. At the same time, the authors of the message ask to call back to clarify all the circumstances: where and how you can get money. A person, beside himself with happiness, calls the specified number, and then it turns out that he has to pay a large sum for the call. Therefore, be careful!

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2 Replies to If you receive calls from unknown numbers...

I have the same thing on Saturday. I wake up, look, play on the phone, and then somehow they called from Germany, but I didn’t have time to take the corpse, so I called back and there’s no sign understandable words Well, of course, I only know the Karelian language, I asked my mother why she doesn’t know, I asked my grandmother, she said: they want to take your money away, don’t answer, but I said: how can she take the money if I don’t have any money) and she became distracted and said: well, a penny There is? I answered: yes, she said: well, if you had answered, you would have been in trouble! But they also called my friend from BALGARIA and they called me from GERMANY and so it all ended COOL ha ha ha and I told my friend they called me from GERMANY and she called me from BALGARIA….

They called me twice in 2017 from Cyprus. I never picked it up and put it on ignore. I just already read an article on this topic, because there were calls from other countries, and by that time there were already complaints about these numbers on the Internet.

For two days now, unfamiliar numbers have been calling, they start calling in the middle of the night every five minutes, some are silent, and some say that they got to this number from the site friend around, I didn’t register on the site friend around, how did my phone number get there, I don’t understand how to get rid of it now from these annoying calls?

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Someone distributed my number as the number of “women with reduced social responsibility.” they called at night. I usually don’t pick up calls from unknown numbers, but curiosity got the better of me. I call back and introduce myself: “investigative officer (..), you called me.” at the other end of the tube you can hear bricks being laid. and quietly, like this: - “I was probably mistaken.” Me: “Were you also mistaken last night? Introduce youreself! where did you get my number?" the dialogue was repeated, only I asked more and more assertively, and at the end they answered more and more quietly. In the end, he hung up and ran away.. the calls started recently, which means someone had malicious intent in my direction. not yet I’ll change the number, I’ll follow the “legend”.. maybe someone can be appeased this way (if the same people call).. you can answer “prosecutor’s office” (if it’s a landline) for friends - it will be a joke, but for hooligans it will be a deterrent :)

You need to contact the “customer support service” of your mobile operator. They are obliged to deal with such incidents. They can block calls from phones you don’t need.

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Yes, it will be difficult to get rid of. There is only one way: do not answer unknown numbers, but turn off your phone at night. Most likely, over time, the calls will disappear. You can really change your number. Try to find this site and contact their administration, but as a rule, this is a dead-end case.

I propose a third option for solving your problem: add all callers to the phone blacklist and from there no one will bother you, because 1-3 calls maximum 10 people, and the blacklist is designed for large quantity contacts.

Peaceful life to you!

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Apparently someone randomly or intentionally gave your phone number to Friend Around. Maybe someone was annoyed, and this is a way of revenge. Either change the number or contact the operator and find out how they can help. And if you suddenly receive threats, remember the time of the call and run to the police.

What should I do if unknown numbers call my number every five minutes?

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You can connect a service to your phone so that calls to your number are paid (I don’t know exactly how to do this, but there are such services). Let them call and pay you. You will earn money, and they will sift through the chip and stop calling.

This is how I would answer this question. The reasons here can be very different - why they are calling, for example, it’s a mistake, someone’s prank, this number used to belong to another person, etc. If unfamiliar numbers are calling your number, you can do the following:

Contact your carrier's office and find out what can be done.
Cell phones have a feature to turn off unwanted calls.
Just don't pick up the phone and they'll probably stop calling.

Turn off your phone at night, there is even a function that will automatically turn it off and on itself.

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You can also call the customer support service of your mobile operator and tell them about what happened; they may block some numbers or even call you to clarify the circumstances.

You can get rid of all those unnecessary people calling you by constantly blacklisting them; over time, calls will stop occurring on their own. Also write a statement to your operator about frequent calls - they can help.

You need to contact the customer support service of your mobile operator. They are obliged to deal with such incidents. They can block calls from phones you don’t need.

Contacting the site's technical support is useless.

And there is no point in turning off your phone at night; you may miss a call that is important to you.

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I propose a third option for solving your problem: add all callers to the phone’s black list and from there no one will bother you, because 1-3 calls are made by a maximum of 10 people, and the black list is designed for a larger number of contacts.

Peaceful life to you!

There was a similar situation, they called from one office. I somehow didn’t want to add it to the blacklist (the service is paid). I had to change my number. This is the only way to get rid of hateful calls once and for all.

There are simply numbers that match yours but are in a different region, or someone just made the wrong number and entered your number into this application, now you are tormented by unnecessary calls, if they constantly call from a friend around you, you can call the operator that your number was used without yours information on social networks and the operator will tell you a way out of the situation, good luck in resolving this situation!

Your number could indeed have previously belonged to another person, or someone leaked it on this social network. Therefore, you were pestered by one or the other. It’s easier to make sure that calls come only from numbers you know well, or change the number.

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They call and immediately hang up - why and what to do

When you heard the call, you didn’t even have time to see who called, and the call had already been dropped. Looking at the number that called, you realize that it is unfamiliar to you.

A fairly typical situation in modern realities. What kind of calls are these, who makes them, and most importantly, for what purpose?

We will try to answer these questions in this material.

Who calls and hangs up, what are these unknown numbers?

Contrary to general belief, it is often not scammers who do this, but marketers who have mastered this type of advertising. This is a classic attention-getting scheme that works.

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The vast majority of users will not call back, but some, seeing an unanswered call, will still make a call back.

At the other end of the subscriber’s line, there will most likely be an answering machine waiting, which will speak an advertising message, and, if necessary (if the subscriber is interested in advertising), will connect with a real manager.

However, there are other cases when, for example, a call to an unknown number can be charged at increased cost connections, and maybe even long-distance.

It’s sad that this “activity” is not prohibited by law, which means that this kind of action will only increase and occur more often.

What to do if an unfamiliar caller calls you and immediately hangs up

If they called you and immediately hung up, then you should not try to call back to this number.

Free legal advice:

Use the Internet - enter into search bar that unknown number that called you and immediately hung up. It is quite possible that he called not only you, and you can find out who it was from reviews from other subscribers who leave online comments about this or that dubious number on specially created for this site.

If you have a smartphone, then you can install an application that “weeds out” such dubious calls so as not to bother the subscriber again. For example, you can set free utility from a renowned manufacturer of security solutions called Kaspersky Who Calls. The application is available for Android and iOS.

The application is installed in the standard way - from Google Play for Android, or App Store for iOS.

Brief summary

Now you know why more and more people are calling you from unknown numbers and immediately dropping the call. You can ignore these calls, you can protect yourself from them using the application, but one thing you definitely shouldn’t do is call these numbers back.

If you have additional questions about the material, ask them in the comments.

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The first time I picked up the phone, the voice from the recording began to say something like “We have an important message for you, please wait. “After 5 seconds I hung up the call. Then they called from another number, I picked it up - silence. Then I stopped picking up the phone. They called 10 times in the last 4 hours, and all the numbers are different

I looked on the Internet - the numbers seem to belong to Home Credit. By the way, I never took out loans.

How to react to such crap? If this is a scam, then what's the point? (I was not charged money for picking up the phone the first two times).

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Who has encountered this?

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22 comments

You take a telephony server (Asterisk), 2 people who receive calls, write logic and go ahead to offer banking services.

By some logic, the asterisk calls you first, then waits until the operator is free and connects you to him.

The script is generally simple.

I think that soon I will introduce this SIM card to the trash can

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So you owe the bank something :)

Will they fall behind themselves? Or do I need to move somehow to get them to come undone, do you know?

From the comments I realized that you bought an MTS SIM card, most likely they gave you the number of some debtor.

A friend of mine had a story: half a year ago he bought a second number (MTS), two days later collectors started calling him. It turned out that this number belonged to another person (the bank’s debtor); when the inactivity period expired, MTS blocked the number and put it back into circulation.

yes, very similar to what you describe. And now I began to vaguely remember that a month ago they called me a couple of times and asked for some stranger to me by name and patronymic - I didn’t attach any significance then, I thought that they just had the wrong number

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Understanding the situation is much better than just sitting in the unknown, right?

An unknown number keeps calling

I don't know what to do. Annoying phone constantly ringing

Thanks, I've never heard of this. Now I'll look for this function on my phone.

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The Moscow financial control service is looking for a guy using this number. They explained to this number twice that there was no such person here. That the number was just bought today. They keep calling from different numbers, but the latest numbers are different. The guy probably took out a loan somewhere and the bank is calling him. Now to my number. So connect now:red

So connect now

go to the cell phone company and show them this... let them change your number

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Today I bought a new SIM card. He called me 8 times this day already

I have an opinion that someone deliberately made a mistake in the number of the phone number when giving coordinates to the bank. And this is very similar to the Russian standard.

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He doesn't have a number blocked on his phone.

We contacted the operator, he refused to block this number.

Is there anything the mobile operator can do? Has anyone encountered this?

What to do if an unfamiliar number calls

After two hours, my number was repeatedly dialed from this number and immediately reset, and this continues every day.

I tracked the history of calls - usually it’s around 9 o’clock in the morning, then around lunchtime 13 o’clock +/-, then a little later and the last calls are very late.

My Turkish neighbors tell me that this is most likely a type of fraud. I’m already starting to get nervous, I went to the Turksel office today and the consultant there told me that if these calls bother me, I CAN contact the prosecutor’s office. Well, I think he just decided to send me away, no matter where - I think he didn’t take my concerns seriously!

I haven't decided yet what to do. Maybe you can give me some useful advice.

Is it a Turkish number?

I recently received a call on my phone from somewhere in Europe. They also just dropped the calls. I decided to call back. A woman answered me and asked if we needed friends. She explained that she lived in Europe, but wanted to come to Turkey and was looking for friends with whom she could stay. Honestly, I have never had such a shock before.

tel.: + 59 14, mobile: + 28 61

ReAnta is not Renata

and you need to contact the prosecutor's office in writing. or simply explaining the problem in words is enough. I was hoping that in Turkcell they would help me block that number so that they wouldn’t call me anymore.. at least change the phone number..

Sure enough, they are calling from Bulgaria, the code starts with plus 35.

"Girls" often call in the hope of encouraging their guys to go on vacation "with all the consequences"

If they spit in your back, it means you are going ahead.

And to be honest, when I heard the Turkish dialect, I immediately handed the phone to my husband, I thought - a client, you never know. He was also shocked when he was offered to be friends

Don't you have a call-back feature on your phone? If not, then change your phone to a new one with this function, blacklist the number and that’s it, the problem is resolved.

And you need to contact the prosecutor's office in writing.

tel.: + 59 14, mobile: + 28 61

If it is possible with your operator, then order call details. There you will see whether the call is toll or not. If they are free, then there may very well be a modem or fax with dial-up on the other end. If they are paid, then depending on the type of service for which you are charged, you will need to block either the service or the phone number from which they are calling.

This is the case with Samsung, I think it’s similar in other phones.

Lubyanka-SHIELD

Life without danger. Find out how to avoid or protect yourself from a threat

Mobile fraud - a new lifestyle, part 2

Today we will continue the topic of telephone fraud that we started yesterday and will reveal the details of some of the top ten popular scams.

Raffle prizes"

Often the draw is carried out allegedly on behalf of well-known radio stations. In this case, the participant in the “game” is invited to purchase express payment cards and provide their code to the “radio host”. The prizes include cars, laptops and mobile phones. For example, scammers acted under the guise of the Europe Plus radio station and the Bee Line telecom operator. At the same time, as representatives of radio stations note, scammers have learned to imitate live broadcasts and speak in well-trained voices. Despite numerous announcements on radio stations that no advance payment is required from radio listeners during the prize draw, calls from affected listeners continue to arrive with the same consistency.

Promotion in the “online store”

According to the victim, it all started in a computer club, where on one of the sales sites cell phones he saw an announcement about a promotion during which he could get a prize - a “sophisticated” mobile phone. The condition for participation in the promotion was the purchase of payment cards telephone communication. Having called the phone number indicated on the website, the young man heard the polite voice of a man who introduced himself as Dmitry.

In order to get a mobile phone, as “Dmitry” explained, you need to buy telephone cards in denominations of 1000 and 5000 rubles, then go to the Finland Station, where a brand new phone is in one of the cells. Before telling the gullible young man the cell code, his interlocutor received the PIN codes of the purchased cards. Naturally, the cell did not open, and when dialing “Dmitry’s” phone, only the network operator’s answering machine answered: “Subscriber unavailable.”

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Fake invoice

Any of us can pull out of our mailbox A letter demanding immediate payment of a non-existent debt to the telephone company for the use of a mobile phone. Otherwise, they promise to take the case to court.

In the case known to us, the letter was sent in an MTS company envelope and printed on the company’s letterhead, and the amount of debt indicated in it, which had to be repaid within three weeks, was “32.2820 cu.” It was proposed to pay them in one of the MTS showrooms (there are 36 of them in Moscow and the region) or through a bank using the details specified in the letter. The letter was signed by a “representative of the credit control department” with the surname Al-Qaisi.

But the recipient was never a client of MTS.

The cellular company explained that they receive similar complaints at least twice a month. Another office reported that up to ten people come in every day with refusals to pay “fraudulent” bills. Moreover, the situation is similar, they said, not only in MTS, but also in other large Russian mobile telephone companies.

MTS employees are convinced that fraudsters should be looked for not outside, but inside telephone companies.

However, so far internal checks have led to nothing.

As for the invoice we are describing, it was indeed issued at one of the company’s centers, there is no doubt about the security service. To work with clients throughout the country, MTS enters into agreements with partner firms - dealers. They enter into contracts with subdealers, who recruit staff to work with clients. These personnel do not work for a fixed salary (at best, they receive it at a minimum), but for a percentage of the concluded contracts. Personal interest in the maximum number of contracts leads to illegibility in the means of obtaining them, including through fake contracts.

As a rule, they are imprisoned under a false name under a “one-time “SIM card” reprimand: I talked and threw it away.”

Such “temporary” numbers, issued in other people’s names, can be used, for example, by representatives of criminals. However, there is another option, MTS notes. According to existing rules, it is impossible to conclude an agreement on the provision of mobile communication services without Russian registration. In this case, unscrupulous employees use other people’s data. The attackers do not think about the fact that the deception will most likely soon be revealed. The logic is simple: grab the maximum while you can, and then whatever happens. People have been taught to think about tomorrow.

To avoid falling for the trick, do not rush to run to pay. If in doubt or a real valid claim, call the company first and find out if you really owe it and how much. Contact the security service and write a statement.

“Most often,” says MTS, “personal data leaks from the telephone companies themselves.” The security service has added to the list of the most likely places of information leakage: currency exchange offices, as well as passport offices of housing authorities and the police. Finally, both note, there is also “Gorbushka”, where disks with complete passport and other data of any Russian citizen are sold cheaply.

Missed calls from an unknown number

If there is a notification about missed calls on your mobile phone screen, do not rush to call back unknown numbers. Therefore, don’t be lazy and enter the widest possible range of your safe contacts into your phone’s phone book.

Such a call can reduce your account by $3 to $15. Fraudsters have learned how to make money using short numbers. The phone number you are asked to call back will most likely look like this: +7-495-ХХХХ123, where ХХХХ is a toll phone number short number, and 123 is an arbitrary set of numbers. Criminals register a company that provides services provided through a mobile phone. Then contracts are concluded with mobile operators; they stipulate that each connection with a short number should cost the client a certain amount, part of which the operator keeps for himself, and part of which is transferred to the provider’s account. Then the robot comes into play, calling cell phone numbers and immediately dropping the call. Software and number databases can be downloaded on the Internet. Such a robot calls more than 17 thousand subscribers per day. If only every 50th person calls back, scammers can earn $3,000 a day on one such device.

There is another scheme. A person registers a short number. Then he purchases several hundred connection kits, inserts the SIM card into his cell phone and calls himself to a short number. There is no money on the card, but sometimes operators allow subscribers to go a little into the minus. The debt remains hanging. And real money comes to the account of the owner of the short number. The cost of one SIM card is 80 rubles, income from each call can reach up to 500 rubles. “I suspect that this method of theft does not occur without someone working in the company helping the scammers. Someone should allow new subscribers to talk negatively,” says Alexey, an employee of one of the operator companies cellular communications.

TV quiz shows

Another option is to use television. There is a quiz show on one of the UHF channels. The presenter offers to solve a simple problem and get a large sum of money. To take part in the game, you need to call the studio using a short number. The trick is that it is impossible to get through: a pleasant female voice on the phone always says that all lines are busy at the moment and asks to wait. A minute of waiting costs about $2, and after a while you are disconnected. Formally, no one is breaking the law: it is written on the television screen that the fee is charged for the connection, and not for participation in the quiz. And eventually someone gets through to the studio and receives a cash prize. The funds received during the program from the remaining “participants” completely make it possible to recoup both the television broadcast and the prize.

As we were informed by the Moscow Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights, it is almost impossible to prove the fact of such fraud. Regardless of what motivates you to dial the number, formally the call itself from your cell phone to the short number of the provider means that you agree to pay for the “service” provided. The only way save yourself from unnecessary expenses - do not call about prizes and do not call back to unfamiliar numbers.

Punishment

As law enforcement agencies admit, it is quite difficult to catch scammers - methods of fraud are constantly changing, and finding the owners mobile phones, registered with lost passports and dummies, are rarely possible. In this regard, the police advise citizens not to trust “free cheese” and to contact law enforcement agencies if they have any suspicions about the possibility of committing a scam.

Opposition

The main recommendation is not to use the phone according to the principle of the broad Russian soul. Unless your lifestyle involves a flood of phone calls from unfamiliar numbers, be very critical of every call from an unfamiliar number. Wherein:

If you left your mobile number at an institution (housing office, tax office, studio, laundry), the call will most likely be from a landline number. By the way, cases of fraud with landline numbers extremely rare. In this case, you can pick up the phone.
Try not to answer calls from unfamiliar mobile numbers at all. Knowing about this habit of yours, friends and relatives, if they need to use an unfamiliar number, will first send an SMS with their full signature. If the caller simply got the wrong number or was connected incorrectly, by calling back, he will most likely correct the mistake.
Do not call back a missed call yourself on any unknown number. Try to find out through friends or the Internet whose number this might be. If, for example, you placed an order in an online store and the courier should call you, ask the store to tell you his/her number in advance.
Do not let strangers call from your phone and do not call yourself at their request. Constantly growing number paid numbers does not give you the opportunity to assess the harmlessness or danger of such a call. Remember that in addition to an empty subscriber account, you may be “assisted” in receiving a virus on your phone, which will either regularly steal your money, or make it possible to listen to your conversations, determine your location, or block your phone. In addition, do not forget that calling from your phone is the easiest way to simply find out and record your number.
When you receive an SMS from an unfamiliar number, react only if you see the full signature and fully understand what they wanted to tell you.
If you intend to sell or buy something, or regularly engage in transactions that require open publication of your telephone number, it is quite legal to get yourself a temporary card, from the number of which you will NEVER call relatives and friends, but you will talk to strangers ONLY FROM IT. Once you have completed the deal, decisively get rid of it.
In all unusual situations listed above or others that go beyond your usual routine, first treat what is happening as a potential scam and try to figure out what you need to do to save money on your phone, the phone itself, and your nerves. It's better to be overly careful than to regret losses later.

In our news, we will try to report on the emergence of new ways to deceive cell phone owners and ways to combat known types of fraud. To stay updated, subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Since December 24, pensioner Maria began to be woken up at night by calls from unknown numbers. The long numbers had codes from different countries, with which Maria never had any connection. “My daughter looked, it was India, and some islands. The last call was from Germany,” said Maria.

The pensioner is afraid to pick up calls from such numbers and does not call them back:

“I don’t lift. I'm afraid to pick up the phone so that they don't send me a bill for the connection later. My son, daughter, daughter-in-law know my phone number, a couple of other people, the bank.”

And Maria is absolutely right, you should never receive such calls. These are scammers who are counting on you to pick up the phone in the middle of the night or start calling back, and they will write you a huge bill for the connection.

Therefore, the right decision is to report such calls to your mobile operator.

“I called Bite that unknown people were calling me at night. They say nothing, they call others more, 10-11 calls each. You only have three. But the calls continue,” Maria complained to Our Topic.

“Most often, those who are trying to make money from this dishonest business, they spontaneously generate these numbers and start making calls to them, and there are times when such a problem periodically exists,” Oksana, head of the customer service department at Bite Latvia, explained to TV5 Stankevich.

Such outbursts of calls can be instantaneous and spontaneous. In such a situation, even competitors begin to cooperate to overcome this wave.

“Last year there was a huge wave when a huge number of calls were made to customers of all operators at night.

The next morning we worked together, trying to identify where these calls came from and how to stop it all,” Stankevich said.

“We and all countries have regulators that shut down such operators. They re-register, start over, start working with different numbers. All operators are fighting against them,” said Janis Lelis, executive director of the Latvian Telecommunications Association.

There is only one defense against such attacks on your telephone bills - as Maria does right, ignore any such calls.

“In any case, the solution is the same - if a person doesn’t recognize the number, picks up the phone, and there’s nothing there, then there’s no need to call back,” Stankevich pointed out.

“These are the signs that you don’t know who the call came from, the first factor to think about is who is calling me.

They often call and hang up. In this case, they are waiting for you to call back."

Lelis explained.

If you still decide to call back to a number unknown to you, even if it is local,

first try to find out who it is.

Well, if you have relatives abroad, then everything is simple - study their numbers. However, if you fell for such a call and called back or answered, then the bill will still have to be paid.

“These calls can cost more than 5 lats per minute. There is no profit for us here; we need to pay those operators, even if we know that they are scammers. You still have to pay, because it’s difficult to prove anything with the help of the police. Therefore, we hope for customers to be vigilant and do not advise calling unknown numbers,” Oksana Stankevich, head of the Bite Latvia customer service department, told TV5.

Probably, the numbers that were disturbing pensioner Maria have already been blocked. “Our Tema” tried to call them back, but it was not possible. But for Maria there is only one way out - put the phone on silent mode at night and wait a couple more weeks. Then the scammers themselves will fall behind.

“They will do this for the first month until the bill arrives, so that you don’t know how much you said there. Afterwards, the scammers usually switch to new victims,” Lelis noted.

And we will reveal the details of some of the top ten popular scams.

Raffle prizes"

Promotion in the “online store”

According to the victim, it all started in a computer club, where on one of the sites selling cell phones he saw an advertisement for a promotion during which he could receive a prize - a “sophisticated” mobile phone. The condition for participation in the promotion was the purchase of cards to pay for telephone communications. Having called the phone number indicated on the website, the young man heard the polite voice of a man who introduced himself as Dmitry.

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Fake invoice

Any of us can pull a letter out of our mailbox demanding immediate payment of a non-existent debt to the phone company for using a cell phone. Otherwise, they promise to take the case to court.

But the recipient was never a client of MTS.

MTS employees are convinced that fraudsters should be looked for not outside, but inside telephone companies.

However, so far internal checks have led to nothing.

As a rule, they are imprisoned under a false name under a “one-time “SIM card” reprimand: I talked and threw it away.”

Missed calls from an unknown number

Such a call can reduce your account by $3 to $15. Fraudsters have learned how to make money using short numbers. The phone number you are asked to call back will most likely look like this: +7-495-ХХХХ123, where ХХХХ is a paid short number, and 123 is a random set of numbers. Criminals register a company that provides services provided through a mobile phone. Then they conclude contracts with mobile operators; they stipulate that each connection with a short number should cost the client a certain amount, part of which the operator keeps for himself, and part of which is transferred to the provider’s account. Then the robot comes into play, calling cell phone numbers and immediately dropping the call. Software and number databases can be downloaded on the Internet. Such a robot calls more than 17 thousand subscribers per day. If only every 50th person calls back, scammers can earn $3,000 a day on one such device.

TV quiz shows

As we were informed by the Moscow Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights, it is almost impossible to prove the fact of such fraud. Regardless of what motivates you to dial the number, formally the call itself from your cell phone to the short number of the provider means that you agree to pay for the “service” provided. The only way to save yourself from unnecessary expenses is not to call about prizes and not to call back to unfamiliar numbers.

Punishment

As law enforcement agencies admit, it is quite difficult to catch scammers - methods of fraud are constantly changing, and it is rarely possible to find the owners of mobile phones registered to lost passports and dummies. In this regard, the police advise citizens not to trust “free cheese” and to contact law enforcement agencies if they have any suspicions about the possibility of committing a scam.

Opposition

If you left your mobile number at an institution (housing office, tax office, studio, laundry), the call will most likely be from a landline number. By the way, cases of fraud from landline numbers are extremely rare. In this case, you can pick up the phone.
Try not to answer calls from unfamiliar mobile numbers at all. Knowing about this habit of yours, friends and relatives, if they need to use an unfamiliar number, will first send an SMS with their full signature. If the caller simply got the wrong number or was connected incorrectly, by calling back, he will most likely correct the mistake.
Do not call back a missed call to any unknown number. Try to find out through friends or the Internet whose number this might be. If, for example, you placed an order in an online store and the courier should call you, ask the store to tell you his/her number in advance.
Do not let strangers call from your phone and do not call yourself at their request. The constantly growing number of paid numbers does not give you the opportunity to assess the harmlessness or danger of such a call. Remember that in addition to an empty subscriber account, you may be “assisted” in receiving a virus on your phone, which will either regularly steal your money, or make it possible to listen to your conversations, determine your location, or block your phone. In addition, do not forget that calling from your phone is the easiest way to simply find out and record your number.
When you receive an SMS from an unfamiliar number, react only if you see the full signature and fully understand what they wanted to tell you.
If you intend to sell or buy something, or regularly engage in transactions that require open publication of your telephone number, it is quite legal to get yourself a temporary card, from the number of which you will NEVER call relatives and friends, but you will talk to strangers ONLY FROM IT. Once you have completed the deal, decisively get rid of it.
In all unusual situations listed above or others that go beyond your usual routine, first treat what is happening as a potential scam and try to figure out what you need to do to save money on your phone, the phone itself, and your nerves. It's better to be overly careful than to regret losses later.

In the last month, scammers have become more active in Latvia, using local mobile numbers they call from abroad: from Albania, Algeria, Slovenia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria and other countries. As a rule, telephone numbers look like this: +403 12294572, +213 654035295, etc. If you answer such numbers, you can lose a large sum. Kirill Dubinin, an internal security specialist at the mobile operator Bite, tells Saturday about the intricacies of telephone fraud.

Olga KRAVTSOVA, Riga.

Over the past month, Latvian clients of mobile operators have indeed been subjected to a massive attack by international telephone scammers. As a rule, they call people at night and send a short signal with the expectation that the person will call back.

“The most important thing that users need to understand is that they don’t need to call back,” explains Kirill Dubinin. — If you have relatives abroad, you need to write down their numbers in the phone’s memory and answer only familiar phones. Everything else is scam calls that are a big elaborate scheme by telecommunications organized crime groups. In other words, these are high-level phone thieves who scam people out of money in various ways. In general, for us, mobile operators, this is a real plague of the 21st century. Naturally, we are constantly coming up with different ways to combat and prevent this. But scammers are not fools either, and every time they invent something new to get around our obstacles.

But here’s the question: how do those same scammers abroad get a phone number from Latvia?

- They don't get anything! Therefore, you don’t have to be afraid that your phone is in the criminal database,” explains the specialist. — Residents need to know that a telephone number is not your property or the property of the operator. It belongs to the state, and a database of all numbers is available at: numuri.lv. If you go to this address and enter your mobile number in the column, you will see which network services this number. How do criminals act? Using a very simple computer program, they generate phone numbers of users of approximately one series in the amount of 10-20 thousand and begin sending calls using a computer.

And finally, if you still called back from an unfamiliar number, and moreover, money was withdrawn from you, immediately contact your mobile operator and file a claim. If it turns out that the calling number is on the blacklist of scammers, the company will return the money withdrawn from the account.

What should I do if an unknown number calls me?

They also systematically start bothering me with unknown calls, but since I never answer numbers that do not belong to my connection area, I simply installed a special call blocker on my smartphone.

If the phone old model, then you can put this SIM card in a new device and using the service will be free, but if this is not possible, then each operator also has a Black List service, which means that the operator will block them, but the service is of course paid.

This happens to me too, perhaps if you bought a new SIM card, then this SIM card could belong to someone, and someone decided to call him at your number. If you answer, you can ask where this person got this number, but you can not answer the call at all, but simply add the number to the black list. You can also blacklist a number through your operator's website, but you will usually have to pay a subscription fee to do this.

This means that your number is similar to the number of that same Catherine, and people confuse them because of this. I just find it strange that they have called you like this more than once. Indeed, you can change your number if it really bothers you. But I, too, like BaBkA, am sure that the number could belong to that same Ekaterina and people are calling from old memory. In my practice, when I worked for some time in contact center mobile operator, there have been such cases. A man turned to me asking for help: he was being harassed by debt collectors, although he didn’t owe anyone anything. It turned out that the ill-fated borrower simply closed the SIM card, and another subscriber bought this number. And the collectors called this number again, not even listening to the explanations of the new owner of that number! In the end, this issue was somehow resolved so that the collectors would fall behind.

Olga, sometimes they call me too. And I also answer. Perhaps people were mistaken. It happens to everyone? But sometimes these people are not wrong. And they start harassing the person with calls. In that case, I go into my office. This refers to operator communications, Beeline, MTS, and so on. And I’m putting this phone on the blacklist for a while. Why, for a while? Firstly, this payable service. Not much of course, like 3 rubles a day. Depends on the connection. But it's not that. The trick here is that this person, so to speak, will dial and call, and in response, like, the subscriber is unavailable. After a while, and I am 100% sure of this, he will get tired of calling and he will stop doing this nonsense. Then turn it off this number. Why shouldn't I pay you for the rest of my life? It turns out to be more expensive. It’s better to change your SIM card then. Well, something like this way out of the situation.

I bought a new SIM card and now sometimes unfamiliar numbers call me and ask for someone named Albert. At first I was surprised, then I realized that apparently the number used to belong to someone named Albert. It’s likely that your SIM card used to belong to a certain Ekaterina, who often receives calls from secret numbers. Operators have a blacklist service, but most often it is paid, but not more than 2 rubles per day

If they call from an unfamiliar number, but the number itself is identified, i.e. numbers are displayed on the mobile screen, then add this number to your contact list, designating it with a name or letter. You can call it, for example, like this: Do not answer. In the future, just don’t answer if they call from this number. From my own experience, I know that after a while the calls will stop. I received several such suspicious numbers, not only from unknown people asking strange questions, but also from representatives of various trading companies who somehow found out my number and often called, offering their services. After I stopped answering incoming calls from such numbers altogether, these people stopped bothering me.

If they call from hidden number, then there are two options: either not answer the call either (but you should take into account that other people can call from a hidden number about some important issues), or accept the call, but immediately stop the conversation after hearing the first question.

Yes, you don’t need to do anything special.

Maybe their phone doesn’t work properly if it’s connected to the wrong place.

Or maybe they are completely drunk.

After all, apart from asking Ekaterina, they don’t say anything.

If you are afraid, for example, that crooks are finding out whether you are at home or not in order to rob your apartment, then, of course, you can contact the police, but they are unlikely to consider your application, because in fact nothing is happening and has not happened.

Don't worry too much in advance.