Vodafone NL to warn international callers after Wangiri fraud ⋆

Vodafone NL to warn international callers after Wangiri fraud

Vodafone Netherlands announced it will start warning customers calling abroad of possible high costs after a spate of so-called Wangiri fraud cases.

Wangiri fraud is receiving missed calls from international numbers you don’t recognise on either a mobile or a fixed-line phone. The fraudsters generating the missed calls hope that their expensive international numbers will be called back so that they can profit.

If you receive calls like this, be assured that you haven’t been specifically targeted. It’s likely that the fraudster has generated a missed call to a whole range of mobile numbers that happens to include yours.

It is recommended that you don’t return calls to international numbers that you don’t recognise. Calls to Wangiri numbers will often result in a charge being incurred and encourage the fraudster to generate more missed calls to customers who choose to call back.

Vodafone also does something about this form of fraud in other ways. For example, since July 2018, several hundred foreign numbers / number series have been blocked as a result of Wangiri complaints. This concerns many thousands of duped customers.

However, it is difficult to completely prevent Wangiri fraud. Vodafone calls it at least impossible for providers to prevent them from receiving Wangiri calls, since the scammers are constantly using new numbers. By regularly blocking fraudulent numbers and now also warning Vodafone hopes to limit the impact.

Several telecom providers are running into the problem of Wangiri fraud. It is unclear how big the problem is. The CDA, for example, stated earlier parliamentary questions, on which State Secretary Mona Keijzer of Economic Affairs stated that precise figures are missing.