News Forum - Thailand: Don’t answer calls starting with +697, it’s a scam

[Thaiger]

If a number starting with +697 rings you, don’t answer. Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES) says it is most likely a scam call centre trying to swindle you out of money. In a smart move to combat call centre scams, Thailand’s National Broadcasting Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has purposefully added the prefix +697 to IP calls to help people identify potential scammers. Internet Protocol (IP) calls are not registered with the authorities and are untraceable. Scammers have utilised IP technology to ensure their call can’t be traced to their location, or to make calls appear to be coming from […]

The story Thailand: Don’t answer calls starting with +697, it’s a scam as seen on Thaiger News.

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[palooka]

1 million baht a day fine.

Finally Thais are learning how to stop these scammers by fining the ones that permit these low life to operate -- Thai phone companys

[kalyan]

this is an advertisment in face book about Tesla X program, cryptocurrency program, just invest 500 USD and get will get any where from 20 USD to 10,000USD ( the advertisment says)

if you click to know about, they will call you.

they will tell you that they are calling from turkey ( men) ( 1st time)

other time, first time some one spoke in thai , then someone took over in english ( both women)

 

i received 4 times the calls, this is from an

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/online-trading-brokerage-brand-xpro-010000736.html?guccounter=1

i got an email also from them, then call and want to explain about their schemes.

 

You will identify clearly as there is no mention about Tesla X program, and someone from Africa would like to scam. 

see below their email. 

 

[kalyan]

5 minutes ago, kalyan said:

this is an advertisment in face book about Tesla X program, cryptocurrency program, just invest 500 USD and get will get any where from 20 USD to 10,000USD ( the advertisment says)

if you click to know about, they will call you.

they will tell you that they are calling from turkey ( men) ( 1st time)

other time, first time some one spoke in thai , then someone took over in english ( both women)

i received 4 times the calls, this is from an

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/online-trading-brokerage-brand-xpro-010000736.html?guccounter=1

i got an email also from them, then call and want to explain about their schemes.

You will identify clearly as there is no mention about Tesla X program, and someone from Africa would like to scam. 

see below their email. 

after posting this information too they call me on +697442081571720, which they are constantly watch all of us.

the previous numbers they call are +697441174095065, +442081572673, +697442081572673

[Matt123]

My friend called me from Virginia USA, number came up as +697. My associate in Malaysia called me today, number came up as +697.

Its obviously some type of intermediate routing number used but not a scam.

[HolyCowCm]

I had one last Thursday and 2 weeks ago.  Very easy to tell its a try to get you thing scam. Also you can Google the number and it should pop up with something. I know when a number doesn’t feel right. 

[js89]

2 hours ago, Matt123 said:

My friend called me from Virginia USA, number came up as +697. My associate in Malaysia called me today, number came up as +697.

Its obviously some type of intermediate routing number used but not a scam.

I think you misunderstand the problem and the solution. Many commercial VOIP providers allow the user to override their caller ID to whatever they want. I have such a system and it has many legitimate uses for a company (for example, housing call centre staff in a different country, but you want the number to appear and be charged at local rates for those accessing the call centre services).

Typically, these numbers will show up exactly as the user sets them - I could call you and make it look like I'm calling from your phone number should I wish.

What the NBTC has done is quite clever. They've decided to add a country code identifier (+697) for a country that does not exist. This means that anybody in Thailand who is called from a number that is a VOIP number will have the +697 code prepended onto the caller ID, which clearly informs the user that the caller is in fact calling from a VOIP number and that the callerid may well be fake. 

Your friends calling you from Virginia and Malaysia showed +697 numbers either because they called you directly from a VOIP line, or as is frequently the case, their mobile phone operator decided to use VOIP for the international part of the call (they do so transparently so it's not visible to the user, which allows them to effectively not pay for the international call but still charge you iniquitous rates for the call).

[HiuMak]

+697 is Fiji country code

[TWS60]

Good warning info, this is the bright side of how the internet/social media can be used effectively.  Just asked the wife if she'd heard about this on Thai media and she nodded yes before I got done talking.  Said she got one of these calls yesterday.  I routinely ignore and then block random/unknown number calls to my phone.  Just scrolled through the list and saw 2 with this CC prefix. 

One would think the masses would be generally wise to this sort of thing by now.  Disappointing to hear there are STILL people out there with monkey brains susceptible to ridiculously elementary manipulation, especially triggered into action by a fast talking RoboCall voice.  This is your lucky day!  Give me 500 Baht and earn back up to 100,000,000 in return.  Hurry up, this is a limited time offer.  Everyone else is doing it, so get yours before it's too late!    

[Bluesofa]

2 hours ago, HiuMak said:

+697 is Fiji country code

Fiji is 679.

697 is a currently unassigned country code.

[Bluesofa]

Back in the UK before mobile phones I used to get cold calls for double glazing/medical insurance, etc, on the home phone.
I told my Thai wife here that I use to say I was interested, but i just had to open the front door to let someone in, and I'd be right back in two minutes.
I put the handset on the side, so they could hear the TV, then ignored them just to waste their time, as swearing at them didn't work, they just moved on to the next victim.

My wife has got the hang of this, and now on these scam calls talks to them to waste their time.
Both my wife and I receive a lot of scam calls. For us, they are always a recording to say you are being taken to court for non-payment of a fine.
Then it's press (whatever digit) to speak to police/court official/more info.

My wife always hangs it out, asking questions, where are they, the details of the fine, and how come she didn't hear about it before. She gives them a false name and location, and incredibly (ha ha!) they find her false name on their system.
The scammers say my wife needs to speak to the police about paying the fine and they will 'transfer her to them'.
She plays her next card and tells them she lives in a police house and she'll just go and get her dad who's a policeman so he can speak directly to the police at their end to explain it.
CLICK! They end the call.
Last time she only wasted eight minutes of their time. The time before it was eleven minutes. She's trying to get it as high as she can.
Bloody excellent!

[TWS60]

Right, I like those reverse scammer guys on Youtube, turning the tables on Boiler Rooms, usually in India somewhere.  Some of the players have gone further, finding the people acting as money mules in the USA and other countries, knowingly or unknowingly.  It's quite an interesting rabbit hole to go down for a while.

[Marble-eye]

I had a call yesterday from a 697, didn't answer it, just blocked it.

+697875786311

[Cabra]

Call all you want. You still won't get me money you will get blocked. 

[oldschooler]

On 7/7/2022 at 8:47 PM, Matt123 said:

My friend called me from Virginia USA, number came up as +697. My associate in Malaysia called me today, number came up as +697.

Its obviously some type of intermediate routing number used but not a scam.

Yes. known UK company called me with this prefix coming up in front of their real phone number. article & header need withdrawal & rewrite.

[GjM]

UK pension department  in Newcastle just phoned me and it came up as ±69744..

[oldschooler]

On 7/8/2022 at 10:19 AM, Bluesofa said:

Back in the UK before mobile phones I used to get cold calls for double glazing/medical insurance, etc, on the home phone.
I told my Thai wife here that I use to say I was interested, but i just had to open the front door to let someone in, and I'd be right back in two minutes.
I put the handset on the side, so they could hear the TV, then ignored them just to waste their time, as swearing at them didn't work, they just moved on to the next victim.

My wife has got the hang of this, and now on these scam calls talks to them to waste their time.
Both my wife and I receive a lot of scam calls. For us, they are always a recording to say you are being taken to court for non-payment of a fine.
Then it's press (whatever digit) to speak to police/court official/more info.

My wife always hangs it out, asking questions, where are they, the details of the fine, and how come she didn't hear about it before. She gives them a false name and location, and incredibly (ha ha!) they find her false name on their system.
The scammers say my wife needs to speak to the police about paying the fine and they will 'transfer her to them'.
She plays her next card and tells them she lives in a police house and she'll just go and get her dad who's a policeman so he can speak directly to the police at their end to explain it.
CLICK! They end the call.
Last time she only wasted eight minutes of their time. The time before it was eleven minutes. She's trying to get it as high as she can.
Bloody excellent!

Nice ! Yeah we ended up getting SO many (90%) sales / scam calls on the ( unlisted !) UK House Landline we stopped answering it, then left it off the hook after picking up, then off the hook permanently and finally cancelled it. Redundant anyway with Mobiles.

Sometimes we had some fun stringing them along pretending to be slow, fake voice, asking many dumb questions etc

, like you see on You Tube with Indian IT Scammers getting their data bases wiped by US hackers pretending to be senile or retarded

[oldschooler]

On 7/8/2022 at 10:02 AM, Bluesofa said:

Fiji is 679.

697 is a currently unassigned country code.

Used by some scammers but so are all phone methods ! 90% my such calls are legit. Reported this Article as Wrong & Misleading.

[oldschooler]

On 7/10/2022 at 3:43 PM, Cabra said:

Call all you want. You still won't get me money you will get blocked. 

Or just click green button see what’s up and wander off for a shower or coffee ior, if a human, string them along for some fun !

[oldschooler]

On 7/10/2022 at 2:08 PM, Marble-eye said:

I had a call yesterday from a 697, didn't answer it, just blocked it.

+697875786311

Never mind but that’s the UK Lottery Winners No. ha !  ! just kidding …

[Bluesofa]

2 hours ago, GjM said:

UK pension department  in Newcastle just phoned me and it came up as ±69744..

Surely they're the biggest scammers of all?

[Chatogaster]

On 7/7/2022 at 5:57 PM, Thaiger said:

Perhaps the +697 measure will help stomp out Thailand’s call centre scammers for good.

 

(I laughed when I read that! It's a joke, right?)

All that's been done is the introduction of a gray-list for incoming number ranges. A snag with that is a portion of those calls is actually legitimate, because even nowadays switches exist (on a global scale) that fail to propagate the original calling party number (the trunk just picks some unreserved number for the duration of the call instead). 

I'm not against the warning flag of using the "696" prefix however. It may cause people to be more cautious, and that's a good thing. But why didn't they choose a more mnemonic prefix? They should have chosen "555"!

 

[Bluesofa]

3 minutes ago, Chatogaster said:

(I laughed when I read that! It's a joke, right?)

All that's been done is the introduction of a gray-list for incoming number ranges. A snag with that is a portion of those calls is actually legitimate, because even nowadays switches exist (on a global scale) that fail to propagate the original calling party number (the trunk just picks some unreserved number for the duration of the call instead). 

I'm not against the warning flag of using the "696" prefix however. It may cause people to be more cautious, and that's a good thing. But why didn't they choose a more mnemonic prefix? They should have chosen "555"!

Ha ha!
Someone might think it's from Brazil, their country code is 55.

[Chatogaster]

4 minutes ago, Bluesofa said:

Ha ha!
Someone might think it's from Brazil, their country code is 55.

That person would be ⅔ right.

[oldschooler]

1 hour ago, Bluesofa said:

Surely they're the biggest scammers of all?

Actually I found them to be most reasonable and efficient recently

UK Civil Service in my experience always serving the public well.