Bitcoin Forum

Don't trust unknown phone numbers / Bitcoin Investment Scams

A few weeks ago I was called by an unknown telephone number on my mobile phone.
Since I did not know this number and also had a foreign area code I did not accept this call.
After several calls within days, I began to inform myself about this phone number what's up with this one!

I found out about this number that it has a Bitcoin Investment Scam from London and others have already reported this number!

https://up.picr.de/33842808al.png
https://up.picr.de/33842850fl.png
Source :  https://www.tellows.co.uk/num/%2B442080280137 (https://www.tellows.co.uk/num/%2B442080280137)

Please Don't Call this Number its Scam !

The question is ! How did they get my number?
My number does not have many and only the closest known!

Maybe others have experience here with this or other numbers!

This is supposed to be a warning to all new users and also to everyone else
not to hand over their phone number and to watch which phone numbers make a call!

Regards Lafu

A few days ago i have readed some User from the german Board got an Call from a similar Phone number as i got nearly an year ago !
Thats why post it in here for the records .


Its from the same Location as mine was " London "
Looks like there are some Scam Company that try people to scam with Phone calls like that .

If anybody on the Forum around the World got some similar calls from the same numbers or nearly the same number let me know or post it in this thread
and maybe we find out who try to Scam People like this.

I never accept calls from foreign numbers, unless it's known number for me. I got calls from Mozambique, Nigeria, Russia, Greece in recent months. I later entered these numbers into Google, and all of them were related with scams and various suspicious activities. If I get call from foreign number multiple times, I simply block that number. Very important point - never call back to these numbers because it will cost you a lot
How they will get our phone numbers? Probably in similar way like emails... Or it's also possible that they're calling to random numbers.

Why not try to answer the call and pretending that you don't know about this?
You can notice their voice if they are from Indian people because I heard most of the phone call scammers are from Indian country.

The weird thing is if you don't know how do they get your number there are two ways that I think if how do they get your number.

1.) Maybe you use your number to any random website and sell your number to scammers.
2.) They randomly generated phone numbers and lucky they got your number.

Honestly, If I receive a call from a different country or a foreign number I just ignore them because I never use my number to any online activities.

I was reading the other day about recycling sim numbers. Sometimes providers recycle their numbers and after this happens a few times a list can be created and sold or passed around. These sort of scammers know where to gain access to these lists and buy them. This is also why I was receiving advertising from companies when I never gave my number to anyone. So if advertising companies can get recycled numbers then so can scammers.
Then they just need to target the right people.

Maybe you used your number on some website for things like sms verification or it could have been leaked from some database. The fact that you are a person who is involved in Bitcoin related activities and have lots of knowledge about bitcoin shows that the person who tried to contact you knows or at least thinks you know about cryptos and probably have some bitcoins with you.

So it could have been one of the crypto related exchanges or websites that may have leaked your phone number if you ever used it for verification

I have been getting such  strange  calls at-least  once  a month.  always  asked my self how  do they get my number.  and how would they know I am online entrepreneur.  I realize  those took our  information  from those  bounty  spreadsheet.  and other  fakes bounty  and airdrops  campaign lunched by them self so we  must  be careful when its come sharing our information online.     

This is the important question in my opinion.

The scam itself isn't that harmful because of how obvious it is - what is worrisome is how scammers are able to target crypto users specifically in their scams via phone or email, which means that they likely have a large database of potential victims alongside some form of contact details.

It is likely that when you signed up to a somewhat shady site, they had asked for verification code on your phone. Or potentially, data leaks of well known exchanges can't be ruled out either, since previously Cryptopia probably had a database leak which resulted in login attempts into user accounts.

Either way, it's important to not only look out for these scams, but make sure that you be careful who and where you share your contact details. Prevention is better than cure, always.

I also doubt that there had been a security breach on some websites that you entered your phone number. For example in your local cryptocurrency exchange, this is possible.
And also a possible, an inside job with your mobile telecom provider in your country, I also heard some issue here especially when your mobile telecom provider is involved which this kind of exploitation.
This case is also more likely similar with what @Baofeng's shared here before about his wife receiving some sms, but the content of sms is some websites that is possible contain some malware.

Everything on previous post about how did they get your number is possible but no one knows how those scammers get it. Thank you for sharing this information which will help those who doesn't know about this and it helps people not getting scammed. I myself didn't know about this one and honestly no unknown number called me also I hope that it won't happen to me.