Phone lines with ‘+697’ prefix too dangerous to be answered: DES
The Digital Economy and Society Ministry on Sunday warned people against answering calls with the prefix “+697”, saying that the prefix was used by call-centre scammers.
The warning was made by DES spokeswoman Noppawan Huajaimun, who explained that the +697 prefix was assigned to numbers based on IP (Internet Protocol) telephony.
Noppawan said that since IP phone numbers do not have to be registered with the authorities, call-centre scammers tend to use them to make untraceable calls to victims.
As a result, she said, the DES asked the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission and mobile phone operators to assign incoming IP calls with the +697 prefix to alert customers of the potential danger.
“The DES would like to thank the NBTC for issuing a measure requiring all mobile phone operators to attach the +697 prefix to all incoming IP calls so that people can notice it easily,’ Noppawan said.
“To avoid being deceived, people should not answer such calls.”
She added that people who receive SMS messages or calls from suspicious numbers can tell their mobile phone operators to block them.