What’s Wangiri fraud?
It’s receiving missed calls from international numbers you don’t recognise on either a mobile or a fixed-line phone. The fraudsters generating the missed calls hope that their expensive international numbers will be called back so that they can profit.
If you receive calls like this, be assured that you haven’t been specifically targeted. It’s likely that the fraudster has generated a missed call to a whole range of mobile numbers that happens to include yours.
What should you do if you get a suspected Wangiri call?
We recommend that you don’t return calls to international numbers that you don’t recognise. Calls to Wangiri numbers will often result in a charge being incurred and encourage the fraudster to generate more missed calls to customers who choose to call back.
If you think you’ve had missed calls from international numbers that may be involved in this scam, let us know. Just text CALL to 7726 free from your Vodafone mobile, and we’ll reply by text to ask you for the phone number you’re receiving the nuisance calls from.
I accidentally called back a Wangiri number. Can I have a refund?
We don’t want you to be out of pocket as a result of these scams, so we refund all customers who have returned a call to a confirmed fraudulent Wangiri number. We aim to process these refunds within 30 days and we’ll confirm the refund has been applied by sending you a text message.
We proactively monitor the network for Wangiri scams, but to ensure we’re aware of your particular case please text CALL to 7726 free from your Vodafone mobile. We’ll reply by text to ask you for the phone number you’re receiving nuisance calls from. Please reply with the Wangiri number you called back.
What’s being done to address this issue?
We proactively monitor our network for Wangiri activity and shut down new fraudulent international numbers and number ranges as we find them.
This is an issue affecting customers of mobile and fixed line operators around the globe, and we’re working with a number of different operators to reduce Wangiri fraud levels.
