EE UK Warns of Christmas SMS Scam Spike – Peaking on 23rd Dec
Broadband ISP and mobile operator EE has today forecast that Saturday 23rd December 2023 will be the “busiest day for SMS delivery scams“, with criminals targeting shoppers in the last-minute rush before Christmas. The same day in 2022 saw 3 million SMS scam attempts being blocked by the operator – the highest number of the entire year.
The most popular Christmas SMS scams include missed or track delivery scams, which work by encouraging shoppers to click on links and thus giving criminals an opportunity to steal consumers’ data or money. This year, EE anticipates as many as 5 million SMS scams will be blocked by the network this December. Just for context, network data reveals 45 million scam texts have been blocked so far this year.
Jonny Bunt, EE’s Director of Regulatory Affairs for Consumer, said: “It has been a busy year for fraudulent texts, we blocked over 45 million before they reached our customers, but the battle is never won, and some will always make it through. Our investments in AI are helping hugely, but we would be nothing without the vigilance of our customers, which is why we’re encouraging everyone to take a couple of minutes to remind themselves of the signs, and to report suspicious texts for free to 7726.”
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Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Government need to crack down on companies selling peoples data to these scam companies, anyone can buy the details, for example when ordering from a certain pet store online I immediately after got a scam text pretending to be a delivery company, the timing was immaculate and on a brand new number that was four days old and not shared with anyone except close family
It’s a good thing I can see through these scams with such ease I find it staggering anyone would fall for them
No numbers are “new” these days.
They’re all recycled.
Rubbish, that’s simply not true
Simply replying “Rubbish” doesn’t mean you’re correct.
There are only a finite amount of 11 digit number combinations available, and two of those are taken with 07, so you only have 9 to play with. One quick Google search shows you how Ofcom mandates all operators recycle unused numbers, due to them being valuable resources.
You are wrong and you just can’t admit that.
EE could stop this problem immediately but they profiteer from the PAYG topups so they need the scammers money. It all helps pay for those terrible tiresome Kevin Bacon adverts.
No SIM card that is connected to the network should be able to send messages to more than 25 different numbers until the sim has 12 months of continuous payments or Driving licence and Passport are provided in an EE shop.
EE allow this to happen as allowing 10 million SMS to be sent from a sim registered the same day is sheer insanity. That needs to stop and right now.
Detecting bulk sending is the easiest thing in the world. The fact EE struggle with this is laughable so the only conclusion is EE are delighted for its customers to be scammed.
> No SIM card that is connected to the network should be able to send messages to more than 25 different numbers until the sim has 12 months of continuous payments
Surely you know more than 25 people?
Jokes aside, I’m certain there is a middle ground between 25 and 10million. I’m thinking 9million 😉