Many lottery spam scams in particular use UK 070 prefix telephone numbers as a means of contact. These look like mobile numbers, but I've known for a while that they are actually "personal numbers" which the owner can redirect to anywhere. Thus, if you move around a lot, you can forward the number to new locations as you go.
What I didn't know was that you could obtain one of these numbers without being in the UK, and forward it to a number which is also outside the UK. Consequently, all those lottery scams which appear to be UK-based thanks to UK phone numbers aren't necessarily in the UK at all! Furthermore, the sign-up process can be done online, just like signing up for a free webmail address, so the scammers aren't even obliged to re-use the same number on their next scam. All in all, UK 070 numbers (starting with "+44 7" when expressed as an international number) tell us absolutely nothing about the location and identity of the party so contacted.
Thanks to Sophos for pointing this out.
For clarification, the international code to watch for is "+44 70..."
ReplyDeleteNumbers starting "+44 7x" where x is a non-zero digit are genuine UK mobile numbers.