Three Ireland blocks over 8 million scam calls to customers in last eight months

Three, Ireland’s largest mobile telecommunications provider, has successfully prevented over 8 million scam calls from being received by Irish mobile customers in the last eight months.

As part of the Nuisance Communications Industry Forum (NCIF) in conjunction with ComReg and other operators, Three is leveraging its technology and real-time monitoring systems to identify and block fraudulent calls before they reach customers.

In recent years there has been a significant rise in scam calls which are often designed to trick recipients into revealing personal or financial information. The measures put in place by Three are designed to intercept bogus callers and continue to protect customers across the Three network.

8 million inbound international calls with spoofed Irish mobile phone numbers and almost one million domestic and international calls with spoofed Irish landline numbers have been intercepted and prevented from contacting customers.

Three’s technical solution is designed to determine if a call is originating from abroad with an Irish based mobile phone number, and whether this is a legitimate call from someone who is roaming or whether it is a spoofed number.

Speaking about Three’s efforts in preventing scam calls, Justin Moran, Three Ireland’s Head of Governance and Security said: “At Three, we understand the concern that fraudulent calls can cause our customers. In order to protect them, we, along with our industry partners, have implemented a technical solution that blocks calls with spoofed Irish numbers when they enter the Irish Telecoms Network, preventing them from connecting.

“Our data so far shows that the volume of scam calls that are getting through is now substantially reduced. Our fraud and networks teams are continuing to work to build on the progress that we have already made and stay one step ahead of the scammers, making it much more difficult for fraudulent calls and texts to be sent to our customers.”

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