Estonian mobile numbers blocked because of swindlers

Photo: PantherMedia / Scanpix

Mobile numbers of Estonians are hot commodity for foreign fraudsters using these for offering paid services and thereby causing numbers of honest and unsuspecting people to be blocked.

«These are cases where a new entrepreneur entering communications market prescribed above-usual price for calling its numbers – like 20 to 50 cents per minute – and used the numbers to launch some popular communication service advertised abroad such as dating ads or a horoscope,» said Technical Regulatory Authority (TJA) communication and media services department head Oliver Gailan.

Mr Gailan said that with schemes like that the network is set up so incoming calls are only possible from abroad and not from Estonia – to avoid control.

Our people run into problems as the cheats are not using the special-tariff format of numbers characteristic to country of location, and as people are used to call mobile numbers at a much more favourable cost, they are afterwards unpleasantly surprised facing the invoice. 

«In such cases, they have recourse to their communication company where the call was initiated,» said Mr Gailan. «To avoid anger of clients and financial damage, foreign communication companies will thereafter limit calls to Estonian numbers. At times, the amount of Estonian numbers included in the list may be somewhat larger than was related to an incident at hand. And calls by ordinary people from abroad to Estonia may no longer work.»

Mr Gailan said the problem plagues not Estonia alone, but happens in lots of other countries. TJA has proceeded such cases as technical misuse of Estonian numbering and up to now the incidents have been just a few each year.  

«Having to do with cross-border cases, proceedings are difficult, especially the proving of the incidents,» admitted Mr Gailan. The problem has come up in the agenda – so much so that last week the government decided to approve amendment of Electronic Communications Act requiring number licence holders to guarantee unavailability of numbers used by them for clients of other communications enterprises in Estonia.

The amendment provides basis for Estonia to be able to exercise surveillance regarding expedient use of numbers. The authors of the bill also assess that such foreign entrepreneurs whose actual activity plan prescribes no communication service in Estonia to lose interests in numbers of Estonian numbering plan. At the moment, the amendment should concern close to 200 number licence holders.

Among other things, the amendment prescribes that, while communications enterprises have been required to keep logfiles of calls and messages for five years for security agencies, the time requirement will be doubled.

Thus «evidence is preserved till the end of term to establish unlawfulness or file a complaint», reads the amendment.