Top 10 scam calls plaguing the UK – Which? News

Phone scams continue to plague both landline and mobile users, resulting in millions of searches for offending numbers on Who Called Me since February.

Data collected by Who Called Me and shared with Which? has revealed the most searched-for scam calls. It shows that people in London and South East England carry out the most searches.

Read on to find out more about the phone scams doing the rounds and what you can do if you’re plagued by scam callers.

Top 10 scam calls

Who Called Me collects reports of suspicious numbers. Reported numbers are uploaded to its website and users can search and see details of the scam number, and leave comments about the nature of the calls coming from it.

From 1 February to 30 June 2024, the top 10 scam calls searched on the Who Called Me platform were:

Phone scams typically involve fraudsters ‘spoofing’ a business’s legitimate phone number or another random phone number to avoid being detected. 

Scammers use spoofing to make it seem as if they’re calling from the same local area or country as potential victims.

Who Called Me received 1,172 reports of suspected spoofed numbers. It told us that in the past month it has removed 27 numbers from its database that were personal numbers being used in scams.

Who Called Me also received around five emails linked to numbers that had been spoofed as people received unexpected calls from others they’d supposedly contacted.

• Read more: what is a phone scam

What’s being done about number spoofing?

Many scammers use voice over internet protocol (VoIP) for their scam calls because it offers a phone service that operates over the internet.

Scammers can also tamper with the technology to change the CallerID.

VoIP services also generate local virtual numbers, which scammers use to appear to be in the same country or city as their victims.

While Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, does have some rules to address number spoofing and phone scams, the problem persists.

In February, it published additional proposed measures to tackle number spoofing. These included:

• Requiring phone operators to block calls from abroad that spoof UK geographic and non-geographic Presentation Numbers, which is the number that the call recipient sees. Ofcom already requires operators to block Network Numbers, which identify the origin of the call.
• Exploring options to identify calls that are from UK callers roaming abroad phoning their home country and calls that are spoofing UK mobile numbers.
• Opening an enforcement programme focused on identifying and preventing individual telecoms providers who allow scam and spoofed voice calls to call UK numbers.
• Improving call tracing processes.

It previously considered launching ‘Calling Line Identification (CLI) authentication’, where the network from which the call originates confirms the authenticity of the caller’s telephone number before passing it to the network of the person receiving the call.

While Which? supports Ofcom’s measures to tackle number spoofing, we were disappointed to see Ofcom’s decision not to proceed with CLI authentication.

Ofcom has said it may still choose to re-examine this at a later date.

We want the government and businesses to do more to protect us from scams. Join our campaign to Stamp out Scams.

Avoiding phone scams

• Never reveal your financial information over the phone.
• Register with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). This will stop legitimate companies from making unsolicited sales and marketing calls to your phone number, so when you receive a call, you’ll know it’s a scammer.
• Install a call blocker for nuisance calls.
• Make sure to use a different phone or wait for at least 15 minutes before calling a company back on a trusted number. This is because scammers may be able to keep your phone line open even after you’ve hung up.
• Call 159 if you receive a call claiming to be from your bank. When you call, you’ll be put through to your bank’s genuine customer service line, but only some banks are involved in the scheme.

Reporting scam callers

If you receive a spam call on an iPhone, you can report it to your provider by texting the word ‘call’ followed by the phone number to 7726.

If you have an Android phone, text the word ‘call’ to 7726. You’ll then receive a message asking you for the scam number.

For scam calls received on WhatsApp, open the WhatsApp chat with the dodgy phone number and tap ‘block’. You can report the contact by tapping ‘report contact’ and ‘block’.

You can also search and report suspicious phone numbers on Who Called Me.

If you become the victim of a scam, call your bank immediately using the number on the back of your bank card and report it to Action Fraud, or call the police on 101 if you’re in Scotland.