On occasion a glut of callers will call to complain that they have
missed calls from a range of numbers, which belong to one or more Syntec
customers (though in fact it's happening all the time to other number
range holders - we only hear about it when it's our customers that are
affected).
What is happening is that some scammers are sending out calls using
random CLIs - the number a caller displays - (generally working their way through a range of numbers, but
only placing a handful of calls from each number), and are calling
numbers at random and playing some sort of PPI claim, or 'Have you
suffered an accident?' type of IVR to them. If they were in the UK
(which they aren't) it might be possible to get Ofcom to prosecute them.
They aren't in the UK for that reason, and they only use number ranges
for a short amount of time, so there isn't time for the major carriers
to investigate fully. Given how easy it is to manipulate CLI within SIP (internet phone)
routing it's more or less impossible to prevent this type of call,
without multinational agreement to incorporate legislation into our
statutes, to alter the SIP protocols suitably, as well as give
sufficient jurisdiction to enable prosecution where it is discovered.
Given that the call centres engaging in these practices are a major
source of employment and taxation in the countries in which this is
happening, there is very little benefit to those countries to assist in
this process.
For all practical purposes it's an annoyance that is unlikely to be
resolved in the near future, and while it's generally over relatively
quickly, the general policy of apologising that callers have been
disturbed, and assuring them that the call had nothing to do with you
seems the best course.
As an addendum, in previous years callers were deliberately
calling and dropping calls from CLI's stating 070 (which are Personal
Number ranges that can cost up to 50p per minute to call from a BT
landline), though they are similar to UK mobile numbers in the hope of
getting people to call them back - this has largely died out as carriers
are not allowed to pay revenue out on these numbers, and wherever we
discover it happening we report the fact to the carrier concerned asking
them to cease the service to that client.