Even Small Pacific Islands Suffer Wangiri

Guam is an island territory in the Western Pacific with a population of about 163,000. Telecoms folklore imagines such places to typically serve as facilitators of international fraud, but they can fall victim to organized crime too, as recently confirmed by a warning issued by the local authorities:

Community Urged to Refrain from Calling Back International Phone Number; Scam Could Result in High Rate for Customers

The Offices of Guam Homeland Security and Civil Defense (GHS/OCD) along with the Mariana Regional Fusion Center (MRFC), in coordination with local telecommunication companies, are closely monitoring reports of local telephone numbers receiving calls from unusual or unexpected international numbers.

The Pacific Daily News reported that Guam’s residents had missed calls from unfamiliar numbers beginning 881. This would be consistent with wangiri because 881 is used for the direct dialing of some satellite phones.

Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalns
Eric is the Editor of Commsrisk. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

Eric is also the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG), a global association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers.

Previously Eric was Director of Risk Management for Qatar Telecom and he has worked with Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky, Worldcom and other telcos. He was lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press. He is a qualified chartered accountant, with degrees in information systems, and in mathematics and philosophy.