It is once again time for another monthly round-up of news about the world’s most common telecoms scam. Commsrisk will keep publishing regular updates about the never-ending ‘one ring’ fraud until every telco and every regulator admits that issuing warnings is not an effective way to reduce wangiri.
Poland
Polish tech website Dobre Programy published an article saying the country had recently been blighted by wangiri calls beginning +373 (Moldova) and +93 (Afghanistan). This contrasted with the news from another tech-oriented website, Scroll, which warned about wangiri calls beginning +53 (Cuba).
Iran
The Iranian Students’ News Agency wrote about ‘calculated scams’ involved missed calls from foreign countries, and especially from Africa. The article indicated that Iran was like other countries by depending on Twitter to spread the news about new wangiri attacks.
Greece
Greek technology retailer Device offered advice to customers on how to avoid wangiri: be wary of calls beginning 0035, 0040, 0044 and 0049. That suggestion may not be that helpful to any Greeks with friends and relatives in Burundi, Romania, the UK or Germany.
Belgium
With 16 subscribers to their YouTube channel, and 113 views so far, let us hope the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) is not relying on their new and cutely animated wangiri video to be seen widely. The short video encourages ordinary people to report suspicious numbers to the national Meld Punt (“Reporting Point”) website. It almost makes me wonder whether the Belgian authorities should tell telcos to report suspicious numbers to each other, without waiting for customers to be on the receiving end of fraud. If only somebody had created a global free service that 100 telcos already use for this purpose…
