Government Warns Mobile Phone Users, Urges Them Not To Pick These Calls

The government has issued a warning to mobile phone subscribers in India, urging them to "be cautious" of international fraud calls. In a new post on X, the Department of Telecommunications has asked users to stay vigilant and avoid engaging with numbers with an international dialling code, as they have often been found malicious.

DoT said in the post that users should act with caution when they are receiving calls from numbers that start with +77, +89, +85, +86, and +84. Of these codes, only  +86 and +84 are currently functional, belonging to China and Vietnam, respectively. The rest are dummy or unassigned codes. The government's telecom agency said it "never" makes such calls, informing users about how some fraud calls could have people masquerading as government officials on the line.

In case a user receives calls or SMSs from an unknown number with one of the aforementioned dialling prefixes, they should report such communication on the government's Sanchar Saathi portal via Chakshu. Doing this, DoT said, would help it "block these numbers and protect others."

The warning comes as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is finalising rules on the traceability of commercial messages to curb spam and other unwanted content in SMSs. Proposed earlier this year, the new mandate has seen multiple deadline extensions, owing to different requests by the telecom companies. Previously slated to come into effect on October 28 and then on November 30, TRAI has extended the deadline once again. With December 11 as the new deadline, TRAI has given more time to telecom companies and telemarketing companies to sort out the delivery of one-time passwords (OTPs), which also fall under the ambit of commercial messages. The implementation of the mandate would also disrupt OTP deliveries, telecom companies and commercial organisations have argued in favour of the latest deadline extension.