To stop con artists from impersonating the bank over the phone by using call spoofing, Westpac is collaborating with Optus and “other telco partners”
According to the bank, it “worked with Optus to become the first private Australian business to reject calls from scammers posing as the bank,” in a statement released today.
The “big four” bank stated in a statement that more than 94,000 Westpac phone numbers have now been added to a “do not originate” list, preventing scammers from using phoney Westpac numbers.
The list is also distributed to other carriers in order to broaden the protection to more networks.
According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, call spoofing is the practise of a con artist using an Australian phone number to mask their identity in order to increase the likelihood that a target will pick up the phone.
Ben Young, the bank’s head of fraud, added that “we’re working with Optus and other telco partners to apply blocks that will now stop scammers from being able to use call spoofing software and impersonate calls using Westpac’s number” in order to combat the volume and sophistication of scams that are becoming more common.
He claimed that as compared to July of last year, scam reports were up 33%.
Scammers utilising software to disguise their phone number as that of a well-known company has significantly increased, according to Young.
Because the consumer thinks they are receiving a call from, say, Westpac, but a scammer acting as a member of our fraud squad is actually phoning from a different number, these frauds are very difficult to spot.
The bank did not disclose how many scam specialists it currently employed. Young continued by saying that Westpac would take additional measures “over the coming months,” including by “increasing scam specialists by 50%” and “launching new digital chat capabilities to enable branch staff to connect directly with Westpac’s scam team.”
