Vodafone says it now blocks majority of spam calls across its network

Volume of attempted calls fell when spammers realised they were blocked, claims Vodafone.

Tom Mendelsohn – Sep 21, 2016 10:49 am | 4

Vodafone customers in the UK can apparently expect a significant reduction in spam calls, after the mobile operator installed new barring technology across its network.

During pre-release tests, Vodafone claimed it had blocked 425,000 nuisance and scam calls in a single day, while over the course of a week-long trial, nuisance call attempts to its customers dropped to under a thousand.

The perpetrators, Vodafone said, “realised their calls could not enter the network.”

Britian’s mobile consumers are all too familiar with spam robocalls, either from false PPI claim-handlers or companies offering bogus prizes or offers, as well as missed-call scams to premium-rate numbers. The new system doesn’t promise to block all of those nuisance calls, but Vodafone claimed it will stop the majority, without customers knowing they’ve been helped.

Mark Hughes, the network’s head of corporate security, said: “Fraudulent calls are a scourge on society, inflicting great anxiety for victims. The protection of our customers is paramount and we have been investing heavily in our network and technology to help stamp out this practice. We will continue to evolve the technology as well as work with industry bodies and the regulator to ensure we keep one step ahead of criminals.”

Nuisance calls tend to be made by sophisticated criminal gangs who generate them from dialler machines which can make thousands of call attempts per second. They use vast lists of mobile numbers harvested from various sources across the Web, and they can make considerable money if a customer is foolish enough to return their call.

Ofcom and the Information Commissioner’s Office have also been spearheading various efforts to clamp down on cold callers. New rules which came into force in May now see firms that hide their numbers facing fines of up to £2 million. In February, the ICO fined a West Midlands firm called Direct Security Marketing Ltd £70,000, after it made 40,000 unsolicited calls in a single day. Nearly a quarter of these were made in the middle of the night, between the hours of 1am and 6am, causing an 84-year-old woman to take a severe fall.

The ICO has a comprehensive package of options to report nuisance calls, which you can access here. Consumers can also sign up to a system run by Ofcom and the Telephone Preference Service by sending a single text reading “TPS,” followed by their e-mail address to 85095. Once you’re on the list, it becomes illegal for spam companies to contact you.