People receiving calls from my number I've not dialed/called

[JayneEva_539198]

Bit of a weird one, but I've received 2 phone calls in the last 2 weeks saying I've called them from my Smarty number but I never dialed them. They weren't scammers, telesales or anything, just normal people returning my apprent phone call to them.

My son is on smarty too, he received a text like message saying he had a missed call from a number but he didn't think it was real, good for him. I looked at it, it did seem like a service message to let us know we missed a call as it wasn't showing up in his text messages. 

Anyone have an idea what's going on? 

[JayneEva_539198]

So to add, I have spoke to the person who rang me. They said they  on Smarty too, his phone never rang but he got a message (same as my son) to say he had a missed call  from my number. So, is there a issue with the network sending missed call messages to other phones even though they've not dialed them? 

[MSF]

@JayneEva_539198 Don't know the answer to this one, but it may be worth you having a web chat with Support Team for them to investigate.

[falkirk81]

Spammers spoof legitimate numbers and from time to time will use your number. happened to me once, I started getting 'who's this?' messages from people, when challenged that I had never called them, they send me screenshots of missed calls with my number.

Unfortunately no way to prevent it really, and not a Smarty issue.

[Sangini_2198899]

I to have received calls on my mobile from people saying I have called them and they are returning my call. I had a look on this Smarty community page to see if anyone else was experiencing this which I can see they are. I have blocked them its the only way I can thing of dealing with it. I have had 3 calls in the past week.

[MSF]

@Sangini_2198899  Certainly a good idea to block the numbers if you are sure that you don't know the people.

Unfortunately, the spammers and scammers seem to be able to generate numbers that they are 'calling from' quite easily. Over the last few month my wife and I have had many calls from the O2 scam and each comes from a believable number - the last one I had appeared to be from 0115 (Nottinghamshire) but was almost certainly from the Indian sub-continent.

It's all very frustrating, but there currently seems little you can do to prevent people apparently using a number that may be yours.

[Simbo]

It’s called phone spoofing, where someone spoofs your phone number to call someone, it’s relatively common and not much you can do about it

[DarrenP_2500004]

Ever since I've joined smarty ( not even a month) I've had 3 such instances of this.

Can someone please explain this apparent data breach in the system, or does it fall  into another category when our personal, should be private numbers are randomly ghost calling complete strangers?

[DarrenP_2500004]

Just to add I have never experienced  this on any other network, such as, ee,, giff gaff, three, Virginia.

[Chalkychap]

Sounds like fraudsters / scammers have spoofed your number and called these people, @DarrenP_2500004.

OFCOM have more about this online at:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/scams/phone-spoof-scam

[DarrenP_2500004]

Why is it that I've only experienced this since coming to Smarty?

Is this a security issue with smarty systems or are they randomly spoofed by bots somehow.

Just curious as I've never had this before?

[MSF]

@DarrenP_2500004  Pure chance?

Have you perhaps given your number to someone/a company who may have let the scammers have it (for a consideration)? What about if you are in someone else's contact list and their phone has been hacked - it certainly happens a lot with email addresses.

[Chalkychap]

I'd suspect fraudsters / scammers choose numbers randomly, @DarrenP_2500004.