Telenor stops 200,000 telephone fraud attempts daily

Despite the fact that Telenor blocks around 200,000 attempts at telephone fraud every day, there are some who do succeed. The so-called “Olga scams” are spreading.

With the help of simple software, scammers can camouflage themselves behind any Norwegian phone number, and more and more are being hit by so-called “Olga scams”.

The scam has been named Olga because it targets the elderly. The fraudsters call customers, say they are from their bank and try to get codes, passwords and sensitive information,

– The scammers are systematically calling up women with names like Olga, Kari, Sigrid, Gerd, and Ragnhild to trick them into giving out sensitive information and bank IDs. These names are often common to the older generation of women, and they are easy to find in the directory information, says Security Director Hanne Tangen Nilsen of Telenor Norway.

Telenor blocks over 200,000 calls daily, ie over 70 million calls annually.

“The challenge is that the scammers change phone numbers all the time, so that the blocking are less effective,” says Tangen Nilsen.

In the past month, SpareBank 1 has registered 17 fraud cases among its older, female customers. The average amount is NOK 200,000.

The most important advice is never to reveal personal passwords, PINs or other BankID information, no matter who is asking. The bank will never ask for such things, either by phone or email.

© NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today