Telephone scams in Switzerland: a scourge that is difficult to stop

The Swiss must undoubtedly resolve to live with attempted telephone scams of all kinds. A witness tells “20 minutes” that he received an intriguing call during the holiday period. On his cell phone, a number starting with 079 was displayed. When he picked up, a recorded message in English told him that the Federal Police (Fedpol) were trying to contact him.

This Vaudois says he hung up without waiting, sensing the scam coming on the other end of the line. These tricks are well known to the authorities. Already in 2023, Fedpol warned against this technique, also called “phone phishing”. Criminals succeed in extracting valuable personal data from their victims. The Federal Office for Cybersecurity (OFCS) states that it received nearly 22,000 announcements last year concerning calls in the name of false authorities. “This is therefore the phenomenon for which we have received by far the greatest number of reports,” specifies the OFCS.

But it is difficult to overcome these malicious intrusions (read below). Swisscom spokesperson Christian Neuhaus confirms that it is still technically impossible to block all of these calls. “For the moment, vigilance remains the best protection. There is only one reflex to have: hang up immediately.”

He also recommends using the anti-spam filter available free of charge for Swisscom subscribers, but which is not activated by default in the customer area. Other operators like Salt and Sunrise offer similar options. Swisscom has not noticed an increase in complaints linked to these scams during the holidays, but does not keep more precise statistics on this subject.

Criminals operate from abroad, use the Internet and spoof local numbers, such as 079, to deceive their prey. The problem is that some of these numbers are very real and excluding them would block the line of their real holder, recalls Christian Neuhaus of Swisscom. According to him, it is impossible to know where these scams are orchestrated and by whom. The spam filter detects when a number is used very heavily and can intercept calls before they reach their victim. But all the criminals need to do is change one digit of the phone number to be able to start again.