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Currently: more than 530 complaints about phone number abuse with your own phone number in May - unfortunately there is little you can do about it!
With call ID spoofing, fraudsters falsify the number that appears when you make a call. For example, scammers could supposedly use 'my' own phone number to make calls and harass others. In May we registered more than 530 complaints. It is annoying that you personally cannot take protective measures either in advance or in the event of fraud. Authorities and mobile phone providers also have no means of combating this fraud and cannot stop this abuse," informs Dr. Klaus M. Steinmaurer, Managing Director of RTR for the Telecommunications and Post department. "In most cases, you only become aware of the misuse of your own phone number when the harassed person asks you to turn off the calls. In the worst case, your phone number ends up on the warning lists of spam detectors on smartphones," Steinmaurer continues.
Fraud - what now?
Many smartphones have spam detectors. These identify conspicuous calls or phone numbers and have them blocked via a warning list. In the event of misuse of your own phone number, you can end up on the warning lists of these spam detectors completely innocently and can therefore only make calls to a limited extent. Many users will be deterred by the "Suspected spam" warning and will not accept the corresponding incoming calls. This can be very annoying for private calls, but it can impair business activity when it comes to business phone numbers.
The Austrian mobile phone providers have no influence on spam detectors on mobile devices. "If your own number ends up on a warning list, you have to contact the device manufacturer, Google, Apple or the respective app provider. Before that, however, you have to find out on which smartphones the suspected spam is displayed so that you can contact the right provider. So everything is very complicated, time-consuming and ultimately unsatisfactory,” says Steinmaurer.
