Mobile Phone Number Lottery

I have never liked the so called ‘personal numbers’ that start with 070 in the UK, and for many reasons. They are generally used on the grounds of cost and convenience, but to whom? OK, they can be acquired free of charge, but that is not representative of value to the end user who has to bear the higher than normal cost of talking to you using the things. It might be convenient for your business to obscure its real location by using such a number, redirected to anywhere you like, but many consumers will assume that you therefore have something to hide. New research from IT security specialists suggests they might just be right.

Apparently, criminals running those dreaded email lottery scams are turning to 070 numbers, second only to US based telephone numbers, in order to entrap their victims. The reasons are simple ones, as I have already stated the numbers can be acquired for nothing and with great ease so there is no problem in getting hold of multiple 070 numbers all redirecting to an alternative number. In fact, all redirecting to the same alternative number be that a landline or mobile, be that in the UK or anywhere else on the planet. Because the real destination is obfuscated, and unless you can somehow persuade the 070 service persuader to provide the information (and you can forget about that unless you happen to be a law enforcement agency investigating a scam), there is no way of knowing where the person you are talking to is located. "With 070 numbers, callers have no way to determine where their call ends up. They may think they are speaking to an official in London, when really they're on the phone to a scammer in Lagos" Sophos senior technology consultant Graham Cluley told me.