Vodafone warns mobile phone customers for fraud calls

The mobile phone provider Vodafone has introduced a spam warning system with which cell phone users are to be protected from rip off. If a Vodafone customer gets a call from a dubious number, the display “Caution: Fraud is possible!” on his smartphone display, as the company in Düsseldorf announced.

The customer can continue to accept the call, but is warned by the display on the display. “The spam warner sensitizes mobile phone customers in the Vodafone network and effectively protects them from harassing and dangerous calls,” says Michael Reinartz, head of innovation at Vodafone Germany. “He is now automatically active.” The warning is also to be displayed for customers of other mobile communications companies that use the Vodafone network, such as Freenet.

Fraudsters often change their number

In the warning system, Vodafone uses a constantly updated data pool in which questionable telephone numbers are stored. For example, they are hotlines that pushed out products and services, although they do not have the consumer’s consent to call. There are also pure criminals among the callers who want to experience personal data in the conversation or who want to have money under flimsy reasons.

However, Vodafone’s fraud number database is not entitled to completeness-since fraudsters often change the number, it may be in the future that a call from them does not trigger a fraud and the Vodafone customers are not warned.

Such a system is not brand new, users can activate appropriate warnings for Samsung smartphones. If a Vodafone customer has activated a Samsung cell phone and the corresponding function, he only gets the Samsung notes and not that of Vodafone. The two systems use different data pools. Vodafone has the security solution according to its own information about the service “Callerid” realized, which was introduced by the provider in 2021 (not to be confused with the simple display of the number). This could show companies additional information on the caller of up to 30 characters length on the display of the receiving smartphone, whether Android or iOS.

Cheated threaten high costs

The telecommunications group recommends customers to be generally vigilant when dealing with new numbers on the display, especially if they have foreign primary elections. If it rings only briefly and the Vodafone customer then calls back out of curiosity, it can be expensive. In addition, no personal data should be disclosed, for example if callers claim such data due to alleged competitions or surveys. Vodafone also warns that those called could trigger expensive subscriptions via button.

And what are the Vodafone competitors doing? Deutsche Telekom announces that its American daughter T-Mobile Us is already using anti-scam services (scam means fraud). “The company is thinking about it for Germany,” says a company spokesman. “In the foreseeable future, the SMS firewall could also follow a scam firewall.” It is similar with O2 Telefónica. You work on your own measures to warn customers of fraudulent calls, says an O2 spokesman.

With oppressed telephone numbers, the spam warning probably cannot warn. With a current fraud stitch with supposedly high upcoming PayPal payments, the perpetrators simply do not send a phone number. If the warnings are too wide and warn of all calls from unknown people, interested parties could quickly find the function impractical and ignore the warnings. The effect is known from virus scanners, who ultimately led to potentially dangerous behavior in the end of the Internet with a high number of false alarm users.