“Hello, you tried to call me.” If you have already received this type of surprising call, it is not the only one. At the end of the line, the person says he called him while this is not the case. It usually follows a confusing exchange. But, if you are not who is at the origin of the call, it is your number that has been shown on your correspondent’s smartphone.
Without knowing it, you have been the victim of a telephone number or impersonation of impersonation. One of the most difficult to identify fraud. Tech & Co explains everything in this scam.
Telephone number usurpation
Crooks manage to usurp a phone number using software called IPBX. These allow you to do without the telephone network to make calls. Therefore, they can modify the number that appears on the victim’s smartphone. And, the problem is that these tools are perfectly legal, a professional, for example, to have the right to call a client showing the reception number of their business instead of their direct number.
However, they are also used to deceive consumers. As the Telecoms regulator points out, a professional can usurp the phone number of a consumer to study others. Worse, this software is also used by Crooks for scams for the false bank advisor.
Seeing that the real number of his bank appears on his smartphone, the victim won and ignores that he is not exchanging with his bank advisor, but with a scammer who seeks to convince her to perform operations in his account to turn money. Last March, Finistère Gendarmerie, for example, alerted these scams after receiving several complaints from residents.
“Hello, I am Mr. Dupont Liar, his bank advisor at Bank Bank. We have detected suspicious activities in his account …”. This is a fraudulent technique, supplanting, “he said, remembering that” his bank will never ask for his confidential information. “
Difficult fight
Despite the law of October 1, 2024, which seeks to end the usurpation of the telephone number, it is still difficult to fight the scams with the false bank advisor. This forces the operators to authenticate all the numbers whose first figures correspond to those of professionals of professionals.
But, for that, professionals must provide the numbers used in a database shared with operators. This is supposed to block all non -authenticated numbers and, therefore, crooks numbers.
A law that does not prevent scams with the false bank advisor, especially because cybercriminals can always usurp the telephone number of a bank through applications such as WhatsApp, which operate from abroad and, therefore, are not forced to carry out such authentication.
What happens if you are a victim?
If you find that your phone number has been used for fraudulent purposes, it is recommended to file a complaint to the police station or the Gendarmerie, as indicated by the ARCEP.
And, the same sanctions are applied when the crime is “committed to an online public communication network.”
In addition to presenting a complaint, victims can also go to the 17Cyber online assistance service to obtain advice. Available since last December, this free platform allows Cybermalveh to establish a diagnosis describing its problem, based on a series of proposals.
By indicating, for example, that this refers to its “mobile phone”, which we have “received a suspicious call” and when selecting “I was deceived by a false advisor who made me validate banking operations,” the platform explains that it is fraud to false bank advisors and advisors, in addition to submitting a complaint, immediately opposing their bank card or even his bank and requests the advisor of fraud.
Source: BFM TV
