Phone scams
The scripts currently in use against UK mobile customers, why caller ID proves nothing, and the free checks that settle every one of them.
Sections on this page
The facts
- Caller ID
- Trivially forged
- Personal details
- Widely traded
- Knowing your network
- Proves nothing
- The only real test
- Whether the offer is in the app
What it means for you
Displayed numbers can be faked in seconds, and names, addresses and even plan details circulate freely after data breaches. So a caller who knows all about you has proved precisely nothing.
The genuine test is simple and free: real offers appear inside the network’s own app. If the deal is not there, the call is not real.
The facts
- Switching codes
- Free
- eSIM issue and transfer
- Free
- Satellite messaging trials
- Free
- Spend caps
- Free
- Merger ‘migration’
- Does not exist
What it means for you
| Free by rule or design | The fee criminals invent |
|---|---|
| PAC and STAC switching codes | An ‘admin fee’ to release them |
| eSIM issue, transfer and reissue | A ‘transfer service’ or ‘migration charge’ |
| Satellite messaging trials | An ‘activation fee’ |
| Spend caps | Any charge at all |
| Merger changes | A ‘plan migration’ that exists on no network |
A demand for money attached to something that is free by regulation is not a warning sign — it is the proof.
The facts
- Genuine staff needing a code read aloud
- None, on any network
- Purpose of those codes
- To stop the person asking
- Sudden loss of service
- Can mean your number was moved
- Action
- Ring the fraud line from another phone
What it means for you
No employee of any network, in any situation, needs you to read out a one-time security code. Those codes exist specifically to stop the person who is asking for them.
The facts
- First, if money moved
- Your bank
- Second
- The network’s fraud team
- Third
- Action Fraud, for the crime reference
- Keep
- Every message, number and timestamp
What it means for you
- Open the app and look for the offer before responding to anything.
- Never agree to anything on a call you did not initiate yourself.
- Forward scam texts to 7726, free of charge.
- If money has moved: bank first, network fraud team second, Action Fraud third.
- Keep every message, number and timestamp — banks and investigators ask for them.
Still unsure after reading this?
Ring the desk and we will go through it with you. There is nothing to buy at any stage.