these english phone calls are fake

About 5,000 people have now reported to the Fraud Helpdesk that they have been contacted by telephone on behalf of the ‘National Police’ or the ‘Dutch Supreme Court’ (the Supreme Court of the Netherlands). In reality, they are fake calls. The majority of these reports were made in October.

What is Spoofing?

The calls seem to come from a Dutch mobile number, or really from the Supreme Court. In reality, these phone numbers have been ‘spoofed’ and are the mobile numbers of private individuals who have nothing to do with them. Last week, the national government also warned against ‘spoofing’, which made it seem as if a phone call came from the national government. With spoofing, criminals can therefore make their telephone number resemble that of a certain institution. They impersonate any phone number by misusing the operation of the mobile phone network.

English phone call

As soon as you pick up the call you will hear an English-spoken tape. You will then hear the following:

• -‘Your social security number is being misused’, or:
• -“There is a warrant for your arrest”, or:
• -‘You are part of criminal activities such as drug trafficking and money laundering’.

After this you will be asked to enter the number 1 to be transferred to an ‘agent’. This fake agent also asks you to verify your identity using personal information. Then it is sometimes said that there is a problem with your bank account. You should ‘secure’ the money by transferring it to a certain account number. In some cases, the scammers “help” with this by granting themselves access to your computer. They do this by having certain software downloaded onto your computer or phone, in order to gain access to a bank account.

Advice

The Fraud Helpdesk advises “to remain alert to future telephone traffic and not to call back the telephone numbers unknown to you. Never transfer money based on a message or telephone call, but disconnect the connection.

Have you recently been called by an unknown (foreign) number? Let us know in the comments below this article.