I think many people have been receiving weird overseas number that begin with +86xxxx…. Really long string of numbers and all.
Here’s what the news said about it :
MOBILE phone users here have again become the target of scammers from China – though unfortunately for the con artists, the scam does not appear to work very well.
It starts with the mobile user receiving a call from a number with a +861 prefix, believed to be made by con artists using an automated dialling system that calls mobile numbers here at random.
Once connected, the scammer lets the phone ring once and then hangs up. This is done in the hope that some of the targets will return the call and connect to a premium-service number, with a charge of several dollars per minute.
R.C., a 23-year-old undergraduate who declined to give his full name, received one of these calls. He gave in to curiosity and called the number. He heard a recorded message in Mandarin telling him he had won a US$88,000 (S$139,000) cash prize, but promptly hung up because ‘it sounds like a scam’.
The calls began about three weeks ago, but the three mobile operators – SingTel, StarHub and MobileOne – told The Straits Times they have not received many complaints.
The Straits Times also tried calling some of the numbers, but they had already been disconnected.
In countries such as China and the United States, where variants of this scam had previously surfaced, the recorded message typically would try to get the caller to dial a premium-service number.
However, this trick will not work here, because scammers need to have a billing relationship with the phone operators in order to collect any payment from callers to their premium numbers. The telcos here typically scrutinise all such requests carefully as a preventive measure against scams.
However, earlier this year, one scam slipped through the net. A Chinese company called MyGlobalFun managed to charge mobile users here $1 each for 300,000 Chinese New Year SMS messages it sent out via local content provider mTouche, which had fed the company the phone numbers.
mTouche was fined $150,000.
On the off chance that customers are billed for premium services they did not use, ‘affected customers can approach us for help, and we will certainly look into each one on a case-by-case basis’, said StarHub spokesman Cassie Fong.
A source familiar with the telecommunications industry said the only way scammers could make money doing this was if they were in cahoots with a Chinese phone operator. Charges for IDD calls are split between the local and overseas phone operators.
Ms Fong said StarHub contacted the mobile companies in China where the calls were coming from two weeks ago. Since then, she said, the volume of these calls has ‘fallen significantly’ as the lines have been disconnected.
For now, said SingTel spokesman Tricia Lee, mobile users are strongly advised to avoid calling back if they notice a missed call from an unfamiliar overseas number.
