
Ask HN: Chinese spam-calls, anyone know what's going on? - arikr
Seems like they&#x27;ve massively ramped up in the past week or so.
======
skunkworker
The FTC has sent out a warning about these calls targeting the Chinese
community pretending to be the embassy.

"The Federal Trade Commission warned this week that mobile spam calls are now
targeting the Chinese community in the US, with the robocaller pretending to
be from the Chinese Embassy. The messages range from asking the recipient to
pick up a package or document from a Chinese Consulate office and offering to
exchange yuan to dollars, to the Embassy investigating a fraud and requiring
personal information to avoid deportation.

The FTC believes these calls are targeting Chinese immigrants or callers with
Chinese last names, but in recent weeks, the practice has reached numbers
across the US regardless of who the number is registered to. Like other spam
calls, the incoming number appear to be similar to the recipient’s own phone
number, or spoofs the Chinese Embassy’s real phone number which begins with
(212) 244. In addition to calls, the FTC warns that similar scams may also be
targeting users via WeChat"

[https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/22/17267970/ftc-robot-
scam-c...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/22/17267970/ftc-robot-scam-call-
fraud-chinese-embassy-consulate-212-244)

------
afo
They are absolutely targeting cities with large Asian populations. It's not
random.

This is the breakdown for incoming calls to the Nomorobo honeypot for
4/1/2018-4/23/18 that have called more than one line from 212-244-[0000-9999]
(the last 4 digits change frequently, just like regular neighbor spoofing).

Data source: Our honeypot consists of over 300k lines from around the country
that people have gotten rid of, mostly due to getting so many robocalls. It's
the main weapon that we use to build our blacklist.

    
    
      to_npa	to_nxx	calls	lines	city, st
      646	233	1383	642	NEW YORK, NY
      347	218	935	783	BROOKLYN, NY
      415	965	266	266	BOLINAS, CA
      917	563	192	147	NEW YORK, NY
      718	878	176	152	FLUSHING, NY
      617	767	57	56	SOMERVILLE, MA
      562	200	56	56	LONG BEACH, CA
      626	427	50	40	LOS ANGELES, CA
      201	546	44	44	HACKENSACK, NJ
      323	203	19	19	LOS ANGELES, CA
      650	492	19	19	MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
      832	293	15	13	HOUSTON, TX
      857	488	12	12	BOSTON, MA
      845	262	10	10	SPRING VALLEY, NY
      585	286	10	10	ROCHESTER, NY
      949	393	9	9	MISSION VIEJO, CA
      206	535	9	9	SEATTLE, WA
      267	457	8	8	PHILADELPHIA, PA
      716	989	7	7	BUFFALO, NY
      310	400	7	7	LOS ANGELES, CA
      510	250	7	7	OAKLAND, CA
      516	279	6	6	GARDEN CITY, NY
      929	200	6	5	FLUSHING, NY
      909	214	3	3	ONTARIO, CA
      315	982	3	3	UTICA, NY
      848	260	3	3	METUCHEN, NJ
      908	360	3	3	MILLINGTON, NJ
      301	825	2	2	ROCKVILLE, MD
      212	687	2	2	NEW YORK, NY
      202	813	2	2	WASHINGTON, DC

------
p49k
Apparently, they are ramping up because they’re working, unfortunately:
millions of dollars have been scammed from mostly older Chinese immigrants
over the past few months as a result of these calls.

------
garyfirestorm
No Chinese calls, but I have seen robo calls on my phone which come from
similar area code (906)370-xxxx Those happen to be some Bahamas Cruise ones. I
wonder how they manage to spoof the number from identical area code.

Edit - grammar

~~~
jjeaff
Spoofing numbers is extremely easy. You can even download mobile apps and do
it from your phone.

I'm not sure why telcos don't restrict this to at least verified numbers. But
it probably has something to do with interoperability of the world's myriad of
different telcos that have to be interoperable.

------
benrbray
I had the fascinating experience of sitting in on a high school English class
during my time in Beijing. One of the common assignments was to practice
speaking by calling American phone numbers that students in the intro
programming classes had scraped from the internet. With exams coming up it's
possible that students are making phone calls on their own to get practice.

But seriously, what kind of question is this?

------
y0y
Do you have a NYC number? Or is this happening across the US? I've been
getting them for a couple of months now and there was just a post on the NYC
subreddit the other day talking about it. I thought I was the only one, and
since I don't speak Mandarin, I assumed someone just accidentally gave my
number to a Chinese business of some sort.

~~~
afo
Is it always from the same number? I bet we (Nomorobo) have some recordings
that I can dig up.

~~~
berberous
I googled a number that called me and found a recording from your site:
[https://www.nomorobo.com/lookup/212-244-9781](https://www.nomorobo.com/lookup/212-244-9781)

No idea what it's saying, and I'm assuming your transcription is just creating
garbage by assuming the mandarin is english?

~~~
afo
Yep. No idea either. Is this a legit message?

[https://www.nomorobo.com/lookup/212-244-9392](https://www.nomorobo.com/lookup/212-244-9392)

I’ll run some stats in a few.

------
afo
Got a number that they’re calling from? I can check our (Nomorobo) database
and see if there’s anything coming through.

~~~
dmckeon
Try 212-244-9392 - Chinese consulate in New York, spoofed, of course.
[http://newyork.china-
consulate.org/eng/lqfw/lsbhyxz/t1486921...](http://newyork.china-
consulate.org/eng/lqfw/lsbhyxz/t1486921.htm)

~~~
afo
This is a recording from their number at the end of last year -
[https://www.nomorobo.com/lookup/212-244-9392](https://www.nomorobo.com/lookup/212-244-9392)

I’ll run some stats on 212-244 numbers in a few.

------
eskatonic
I got one of those, and let my Chinese coworker listen to it and tell me what
it was about. She got the same call, and when she called the number back
(which was the Chinese Embassy in San Francisco), they got mad at her.

------
valentinemsmith
I have a 415 number and began receiving these a few weeks ago.

~~~
dmckeon
This was happening in SF in November, 2017.

[https://sanfranciscopolice.org/article/sfpd-issues-
warning-t...](https://sanfranciscopolice.org/article/sfpd-issues-warning-
telephone-scam-targeting-chinese-residents-17-176)

Does anyone else find it troubling that scammers and spammers using spoofed
calling numbers are doing to the voice phone system what spammers did to
email, and before that, to NNTP? (The "Green Card" spam was 24 years ago.)

