Nuisance Phone Calls from 0161 numbers
Since August 2015, a very nasty bunch of cold callers based out of South Africa have been placing nuisance phone calls to residents of the Manchester area. We're not sure what they're selling, but think it might be related to PPI claims.
This is a case of Caller ID spoofing whereby the calling party inserts a ‘fake’ Caller ID to prevent them from being identified and they happen to have used a number from within our range. We recommend that you report this to your Service Provider so that the nuisance calls can be traced back through their network to find the originator. Unfortunately because the calls do not pass through Digital Mail's network we are unable to control them.
Sadly none of the UK regulatory bodies seem able to deal with this problem and that is extremely frustrating for all concerned (least of all ourselves, as our reputation is being tarnished by association).
We believe that they are doing this on behalf of some UK-based financial services company. In order to get the authorities (eg. The Information Commissioner's Office) to do something about it, it would be good to gather some information. If anyone would be prepared to play along with them to find out who's behind it, please share that information with us.
There are some websites giving more information on this. I know that people are suggesting that being nasty to us will help as if we're some way involved. If you want to stop these people, we need to trace where their calls are entering the country and get the major telcos to help.
If you have anything useful to add to this, please email to support@dmclub.net.
Nuisance calls from 020 numbers Feb 2016
The following numbers have been associated with Lottery scam calls. They originate from a call centre in South Africa who use them as their callerID in the hope of presenting a respectable image. They claim that all their target numbers were bought in at great expense from a reputable source of marketing data and that their lottery phone calls are fully compliant with Ofcom guidelines! However, they agreed to stop using these numbers on their outbound calls as from 21st Feb 2016. We hope they will be true to their word, but fear that will not stop the nuisance calls, it'll just be up to some other telecoms company to notice and stop them.
020-3000-7596
020-3000-7642
020-3000-7658
020-3000-7659
020-3000-7672
020-7060-1143
020-7060-5530
FAQ
who should I complain to?
https://ico.org.uk/ if there is mis-use of personal information
http://www.actionfraud.police.uk/contact-us if there is fraud involved.
https://www.witnessconfident.org if there was a threat to you
NEW Feb 2016 : http://www.tradingstandardsecrime.org.uk/contact/ could be a better bet
What is a good way of making a report?
Get the facts clearly written down, with dates/times all the details (phone numbers etc)
If you have raised a support request with our support team, then include our contact details and the support number. This way we can work the relevant authorities quickly and efficiently.
How can I check if a call went through your network?
In general the "bad people" do not put their calls through our network for the following reasons:
- We shut them down very quickly following a valid complaint
- We assist the UK authorities quickly
- We freeze their accounts, and invite them to attend a meeting with the police in attendance to unfreeze the account
- It much easier for them to use an unscrupuluous offshore telco, who will "spoof" the calling information, pretending that the call comes from a UK number, then puts the calls through a UK telco who does not vet the signalling of the inbound calls
Here is an example:
On thursday 21st January 2016, at 10:30:34 I received a call on my mobile 07855-123-456 from a number 0161 193 0454 where someone tried to sell me PPI claims. I explained that I was not interested, but the person was abusive and threatenned to call me back.
I did not authorise this call.
We can then do trace
Can I get my telco to do a trace?
Yes, if the law was being broken give them an example of the call, as soon after the call as possible. State what was wrong with the call, and the harm that was being caused.
I am very annoyed with these people who are calling me, I would like to help stamp this out, any ideas?
We think that most of these calls are coming from South Africa, so frankly it will be a hard job to bring them to justice. But we think that they are probably being paid by a UK company who is making money from PPI claim schemes etc. If they could be named and shamed, with real evidence, then maybe the authorities could be encouraged to bring them to justice.