Rarotonga

This being notice of a recent attack on my telephone from someone or something mixed up with Rarotonga, the largest of the Cook Islands.

A week or so ago I got a flurry of missed calls from an odd looking number. Not being very familiar with these matters -  but mindful that I get genuine medical calls which appear to come from unexpected places - I returned one of the calls. Clearly a mistake with hindsight.

I thought that I had closed the call almost as soon as I had made it, as soon as the word 'Rarotonga' appeared on my telephone, but clearly I had not, with the call sitting there for long enough to clock up a substantial charge. I started to get wind of all this when O2 sent me a message advising me of that charge.

At which point we made an excursion to Newport, where the last O2 shop on the island is to be found and where a helpful young lady took us in hand. The upshot was that first she blocked international calls on both our phones - which did not seem to be a problem at the time as I couldn't remember when I last made such a call - probably when I was still at work, twenty years ago. And second that we come back a week or so later, by when the charge would have appeared on a bill and could be discussed with the billing people.

We learned in the margins that, just like at HSBC, O2 branch office staff do not have very privileged access to central services and have to wait in line like common or garden customers.

We returned a week or so later, to have a conversation with the billing service, which resulted in what I thought was a reasonable sharing of the pain. The call had been made and the charge had been incurred.

I wondered where Samsung sat in all this. It might be that there was a problem with the telephone which meant that the inactive call was not terminated as quickly as it might have been. And while O2 might have sold me the telephone, I don't suppose they accept any responsibility for problems I might have with it; that is something for me to sort out with Samsung.

I also wondered who was making money here. Presumably someone selling a spoofed premium service over a real line operated by a Rarotongan telephone company - which last also stood to gain.

A curious feature of this conversation was that it took place over a very bad line, something which one might have thought a communication company would have sorted out. Perhaps, like the Department of Work and Pensions, they keep you standing in line (as it were) to deter time wasters and people pushing their luck.

A satisfactory resolution and we have escaped without much damage. International calls - and other 'out of bundle' services remain blocked. And we are a little wiser after the event.

The start of Google's advice this morning on the matter is snapped above.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rarotonga.

Reference 2: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/scam-calls-and-messages/advice-wangiri-missed-call-scams.