Scam Phonecalls from Morocco : +212

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Getting a spate of +212 numbers at the moment. I block them as I get them. Google show them as coming from Morocco.
How do they get hold of my number..
 
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They don’t target your number specifically. Uses auto-dialler software that just tries thousands of numbers. If the number exists, they keep trying couple of times.
 
As far as I know, such scammers also have software that can spoof the calling number. So just because the number appears to be a Moroccan one, they might or might not be calling from Morocco.
 
I'm getting +221 for Senegal! I must have won a world cup sweepstake or something. Pity I missed the call...
 
Aye Senegal here as well. They're getting cleverer though with these calls, especially to the landline. We have received quite a number of calls to the landline from numbers which at first glance appear to be legitimate Irish numbers (i.e. have a proper prefix such as 045) but when you ring them back they are invalid. It's almost to the point where we're considering going ex-directory it happens so often.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Will that help?

ARe they not just dialling numbers at random?

Brendan
Click to expand...
Won't help. Scraping phone directory services is actually much more difficult than just using auto-diallers, which only requires rather simple software and a bit of scripting.
You can easily try & dial 1000's of numbers per second without incurring any costs. So testing all Irish landline or mobile numbers will only take a few days.

Telco's usually try to block those mass diallers, but sometimes it takes a bit of time until systems cop on.
 
ah, thanks guys, I thought it would help as I thought that numbers were somehow being obtained from published lists but sounds like that is not the case. We must be just unlucky then as the MIL is ex directory and gets none of these calls while at times we could get a couple of these a day for a number of days.
 
The number has thrown me lately as the first 3 digits are 021 but I'll be more vigilant in future.
I then discover it's the 'Microsoft' scammers, don't think I can block them myself.
I thought these calls were easing off but they seem to be on the increase again.
 
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