The UK’s data watchdog is investigating a sharp rise in complaints about automated “robo calls” that ask recipients to add the caller on WhatsApp, and which are suspected of leading to a recruitment scam.
The Information Commission’s Office (ICO) logged more than 3,600 complaints about automated calls in September, a five-year high and almost three times the number it received in July.
The regulator suspects millions of people are being targeted and told BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours it was “deeply concerned” by the increase.
The ICO advises people to ignore calls from numbers they do not recognise, and to block and report any suspicious calls to the watchdog.
The automated calls typically appear to come from a UK mobile number. Some of the recorded messages mention an offer of part-time work.
Recruitment scam suspected
Simon Fell, of the Communications Crime Strategy Group — a telecoms industry body set up to tackle fraud — said he could not be sure what form the scam would take, as he had not followed up on the messages.
“Mostly likely it would be a recruitment scam,” he said.
He said victims could be directed to a fake job listing involving some form of money muling. “It could look like a completely legitimate job, or something ad hoc, but they might pass criminal funds through your account which can lead to terrible consequences,” he said.
The messages could also amount to a simple phishing exercise, he added, with criminals seeking to establish who is picking up and who is active, information that can then be resold on the dark web.
“The possibilities are endless. At the end of the day this is a criminal that has reached out to you and they’re trying to defraud you in some way shape or form.”
You and Yours added one of the numbers on WhatsApp and received a message in return.
Calls believed to originate abroad
Andy Curry, the ICO’s head of criminal investigations, told the BBC he believed the calls were coming from abroad.
“We are trying to find who is behind this, why they’re doing it and the impact it’s having on members of the public,” he said.
He said the number of complaints received by the ICO would represent only a small proportion of those affected.
“We think there are probably millions of people who are receiving these messages, which appear to us to be largely indiscriminate,” he said. “I’ve had them, my colleague who’s leading the investigation has had them. It’s likely to be tip of the iceberg.”
Industry response
Mr Fell said mobile companies were “working on a range of fronts” to tackle the influx of automated calls. That work includes sending intelligence reports to the regulator Ofcom, working with law enforcement and liaising with Meta, which owns WhatsApp.
He said that if someone does follow up on the request to add the number to the encrypted platform, “any dialogue that happens between you and the criminal then can’t be investigated any further”.
A WhatsApp spokesman said features were in place to protect users from scam calls, including silencing calls from unknown numbers. He also said WhatsApp banned millions of accounts each year for “malicious behaviours”, such as bulk account registration or automated messaging.
While the calls typically appear to be from a UK mobile number, Mr Fell said those numbers are imitated, or spoofed, by the criminals behind the scam.
In November last year, the UK government promised that call spoofing would be eliminated within a year.
A Home Office spokesman said the government was taking “robust action” to tackle scams, adding: “We remain committed to delivering the Telecommunications Charter, alongside industry, by November.”
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