Mystery wake-up call spooks residents across NZ

Thursday, 18 January 2018

Mystery callers target Kiwis in the night, including Marlborough's Wendy and Jae Russell.

It's the middle of the night and the phone rings, twice, and stops.

The call history shows 'unknown caller', while for those who manage to answer in time, nothing.

Households across New Zealand, from Dunedin to Palmerston North, have reported being woken by a late-night mystery caller.

Wendy and Jae Russell were among many woken by a mystery phone call on Tuesday morning.

Most people thought it was just them, until they found out friends had been called too.

*Sophisticated new phone scam dupes victims with number spoofing

*The latest phone police phone scam 'beyond anything we've seen before'**

Network provider Spark said it had tracked the number to an offshore location, and it had since been blocked.

But the reason behind the Tuesday morning calls has got people speculating.

IT worker Jae Russell, who lives in Marlborough's Wairau Valley, said the call took him and his wife by surprise.

'My theory is that someone's just trolling through all numbers in the country and detecting [which numbers] ring so that they can sell a list of valid phone numbers for people to spam later on,' he said.

His wife Wendy Russell said it was unusual for anyone to ring their number, as it was not listed anywhere, let alone at 2.30am.

'I thought it was really interesting that a lot of people experienced it because we have a different sort of phoneline, it operates through the internet rather than the landline,' she said.

Wendy Russell posted about the 'mystery call' on her private Facebook account and found friends outside the region also received the call.

'I have friends as far as Christchurch, Kāpiti Coast, Palmerston North and I hear people in Dunedin got calls, and times ranged from about 1am to 4.30am,' she said.

A Spark spokesman said there was no security breach, but customers who received calls of this nature should not phone back.

'We have identified an offshore number behind the calls and this number has been blocked.

'The number we identified as making these calls showed up on the Spark network as an Australian number. However, as the call came from outside New Zealand we cannot confirm whether it was actually made from Australia,' the spokesman said.

Christchurch man John Davis also received the call.

'It was just after 1am and I got up to let one of our cats out and the phone rang a couple of times.

'Like a lot of people I've got relatives overseas so, of course, the first thing I thought was 'this can't be good'. At first I thought it was a glitch and then I found out heaps and heaps of people had it,' Davis said.

Marlborough Sounds resident Rose Patchett said it was 'just weird'.

'I've got a phone by the bed and about 3am the phone went and I thought 'oh no, what's gone wrong'.

'I went to answer it and there was nothing there. There was just nothing on the other end, I didn't hear anyone hanging up,' she said.

Patchett said the call gave her a fright.

'[When] the phone goes off in the middle of the night you think of your family and think what's gone wrong and I just couldn't get back to sleep,' she said.

Police prevention area manager for Marlborough Sergeant Peter Payne said he was aware of a number of phone scams operating in the area.

'We encourage people to remain vigilant as these can be a popular method used by thieves,' Payne said.