Phone number is hacked

[TD4]

A lot of unknown people are ringing my home phone number, telling me that they return my call. I haven't rung anyone!  Someone seemd to be able to make calls using my phone number! 

I recently had NBN installed, so my phone is now using voip via the Telstra gstewag modem. Can someone help?

[343GuiltySpark]

Would appear that your number is being spoofed. To my knowledge its not possible to stop.

[ForensicsGuru]

Unfortunately, it is as easy to spoof phone number as it is to spoof e-mail address. There is not a known protection against this... I am sorry for you to be a victim, but "welcome to the digital world"...

[TommyR]

Hi TD4.

I would recommend getting in touch with the nbn support team on 1800 834 273 and see if they can investigate this further for you, although if this is being spoofed by scammers for example there may not be much we can do other that look at changing your home phone number. 

Let us know how you go once you have had a chat with them. 

Regards - Tom

[faerie]

@TD4 please call our unwelcome calls team for more information with this issue. We are seeing a lot more of this practice in Australia now. The practice of “using” numbers is known as spoofing. It is a practice commonly used by overseas scammers where they will randomly use any Australian number (connected numbers, disconnected numbers and numbers that have never existed) so that when their call enters our telephone network via their VoIP/Internet data calls it then displays to people as that number. We believe this practice is used because people are more likely to answer a call from an Australian number rather than one that says private or international/overseas caller. If they use a connected phone number the first time you become aware of it is when people start calling you back saying they missed a call from you. The choice of your number is generally totally random though more frequently now we are seeing numbers used just after they themselves received a scam call.

There are some things our team can do to assist and it is also worth reporting this issue to the Government's www.scamwatch.gov.au website as always, awareness of this situation may help others.

[TD4]

Thank you, everyone for responding to my query.

What I have done is: delete my messagebox at 101, unplugged all the fixed phones (analog and digital) and let it rest for a few days.

After that while I plugged the phones back in and it has now quietened down, I don't get the phone calls any more from angry people.

So I guess the spammers have moved on to other phone numbers.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

I did not pursue it any further with NBN helpdesk or similar because I don't have much confidence that they actually can do something.