Tag Archives: telephone numbers

tellows database – Where does the information about dubious phone numbers come from?

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tellows Scam Caller Types
Thanks to its large community, tellows offers up-to-date data on unknown phone numbers from all over the world. Using this information, we have developed various solutions to warn consumers of unwanted calls while the phone rings.

Where does the information come from?

More than 9 million users in more than 50 countries use the tellows website, the tellows applications and the partner products every month to find information about unknown calls and report details about frequently called telephone numbers. More than 20,000 reviews are received every month. Users share the name of the caller, the type of call and the purpose. Positive telephone numbers can also be reported and company entries for various industries can be stored to help people find your business.

Regular checks of the content are necessary for a reliable protection. tellows performs manual checks and uses automatic spam checks to ensure optimal data quality and to avoid manipulations.

How is the tellows database structured?

The database contains only phone numbers with existing ratings that are of public interest as they have called a lot of people. A phone number can have multiple ratings. With the help of the ratings, tellows creates an average score, which makes it possible to estimate the reliability of the number. The database of a rated telephone number contains the tellows score, the caller type, the caller name, the number of ratings and search queries, the location, excerpts from comments and other assigned caller names and types.
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Think phone spam isn’t a problem in the UK? Think again! Check out our annual report to see our latest research

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Dear tellows fellows,

This week we celebrate the release of our latest annual report!

Your tellows team would like to wish you a happy new year! The new decade officially started more than one week ago and we want to take the chance to thank you all for the support you showed to our website in the past year. So, how has 2019 been as far as phone calls are concerned? Find out in our new annual report!

The annual report contains information about spam trends during 2019, including information about caller type, user and usage stats. This is in addition to general information about the growth of tellows throughout the year, most notably on its social media platforms. Check out our blog article from December 2019 which contains all the useful stats about user activity on tellows.

Download the tellows Annual Report 2019

As compared to 2018, in 2019 harassment calls significantly decreased in terms of percentage (from 29% to 19%), but the proportion of calls coming from telemarketers and aggressive advertising has increased. However, more trustworthy numbers have also been reported on tellows, making them the most popular caller type recorded in the UK. Among the most searched numbers from last year are:

  • +441709357345 (search requests 113838, ratings 91), which is supposedly a number used by the telecommunication company Vodafone
  • +442078553116 (search requests 97080, ratings 98), supposedly identifiable with Amazon Delivery service
  • +441844398909 (search request 238744, ratings 85), supposedly EE.

All in all, in terms of caller types, UK users have been reporting more useful calls, even if almost 75% of all calls can be considered as “unwanted”.

In order to make the tellows experience better, last year our team tried to create more engagement with the users by publishing a second version of the tellows magazine in January and was more active on social media platforms.

What is tellows magazine? Briefly put, it is our own magazine available in e-book format which contains all the important information you need to protect yourself against unwanted calls and alleged fraud. The content ranges from general facts about spam calls to ways for reporting them. Download the magazine for free!

In August 2019 we also achieved an important goal: our downloads on Google Play Store reached 500K! In the last few months tellows has been busy updating the app for Android and was finally able to launch the new version in November with some major changes. How is it better? First of all, we made some new usability updates which make the app generally easier to use, thus ensuring our users have a better experience. More specifically, the app menu has been drastically changed and the settings menu has also been re-structured. Secondly, we have made it possible to view manually blocked numbers by adding the new entry “local scorelist”. Moreover, we introduced a new spam category, which is SMS spam, and now phone numbers can also be assigned to this new caller type. Finally, the app language could be manually changed directly in the app. As for aesthetics, we introduced the tellows man, who is there to introduce new users to the app when it is first downloaded on the mobile device.

At least twice a week we create a new post on Instagram about new spam trends, advices for protection from spam calls and also small curiosities about cultures all over Europe. Of course, the Facebook page remains really active by publishing articles and being ready to answer inquiries from customers.

The annual report 2019 gives you insights into the worldwide scam and spam reports and the top trends of 2019.

Download the tellows Annual Report 2019

With this annual report tellows is officially putting an end to 2019, nevertheless the achievements made during the last year are just going to keep us motivated for improving our service and guarantee all our users major protection against unwanted calls. Thanks for the support!

The tellows team

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Major Changes following the tellows Android App Redesign

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Hello tellows friends,

We at tellows have some exciting news: We have released a major app update!

Some of you may have been lucky enough to have used or seen the latest version already, as the update has been rolling out since the end of November. Check it out in the Play Store!

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The Fake Amazon Prime Scam

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Hello tellows friends,

Think you already know everything about the latest phone scams? You’d be wrong. Scammers are constantly devising new ways to trick the public and in this blog we are going to introduce you to one of their newest tricks: The Amazon Prime Scam.

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Who do fraudsters target and why do we get caught out?

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Hello tellows friends,

For our blog this week, we thought it would be fun to do something different and give you a more general report about who fraudsters target and why we fall for scams.

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The Summer Holiday Fraud

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So it’s July, the start of summer holidays of 2019. We are all planning our vacation ahead, personally the tellows team really wants to visit Portugal, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina… We only hope the holiday could be longer! Anyway, tellows hopes that besides enjoying your holiday, you don’t fall victim to a vacation phone scam! Let’s check out the following Vacation phone scam together.


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HMRC works with telecoms to stop fraudsters

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Updated 24 Feb 2020

It is almost March, how time flies! The tellows team has also been busy keeping the information about phone scams up to date. As expected, unfortunately, the number of spam calls, especially related to cost traps, is soaring because of more advanced technology nowadays and scammers having more means to escape from the authorities. Scammers have been taking advantage of taxpayers in last year. According to HMRC, over 100,000 reports of frauds were reported last year and the number is increasing. Last year, HMRC announced that it has been working with Ofcom, Mobile UK, Mobile Ecosystem Forum and Telecommunications UK Fraud Forum together to prevent bogus tax calls. The cooperation was successful and 1050 numbers have been deleted by HMRC, of which many numbers started with 0300. HMRC also stated that the number of phone scam reports has reduced by 25%, which is a very promising sign.

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Meeting your significant other online? – Romance Scam

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The movie ‘You’ve got a mail‘ is one of the tellows’ team favorite movies. But my readers, how many of us can become Joe and Kathleen in real life? Unfortunately, more people are falling victims to ‘romance scams’ regardless of gender, according to the official information* of many countries. Let us have a look at the figure:


*Information from ACCC, FTC, Action Fraud, RCMP and Netsafe.

The numbers above are surprisingly alarming. In the US, the losses of romance scams rose from $33M to $143M in 2015 to 2018 as stated in FTC. Online dating becomes more popular and common nowadays, thanks to the technology we can meet endless potential romantic partners online. However, we also become more vulnerable when there are scammers try to take advantages of the online dating platforms.
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Does it matter to you? International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF)

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Dear tellows readers,

This week we would like to share news from Europol (The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation) and Trend Micro Research, together they released the Cyber-Telecom Crime Report 2019. The report explains our excessive dependence on telecommunications technology nowadays and how scammers take benefits from it by carrying out illegal activities. The cost of telecommunications fraud reached €29 billion according to Europol, as advanced technology dramatically increases fraudsters’ capabilities. tellows has already shared figures of the Missed call (the Wangiri fraud) and Vishing calls frauds before. This time we will have a look at International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF)! These frauds mentioned above are all infamous telecommunications frauds included in the Cyber-Telecom Crime Report 2019.
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Lottery scammers prey even on the poorest villagers

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Ratan Kumar, a 41-year old Indian villager came to the BBC Delhi office last month to claim his prize in a “BBC lottery” worth millions of rupees, only to know that he was scammed.

Ratan said he got a text message two years ago saying that he won the BBC’s national lottery for 20 or 30 million rupees (£194,000-£292,000). Unemployed, Ratan fell for it, communicated with the scammers until November last year, and sent his personal details.

The perpetrator presented himself to Ratan as the chancellor of BBC. “He promised me a large sum of money but said I would have to first send 12,000 rupees ($191; £117) so that he can transfer the money into an RBI (Indian bank) account, ” Ratan told the BBC office.

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