It’s been a while since we updated our website guidance to the general public on unwanted calls, and with some changes in the industry, it is worthwhile ensuring everyone has the most up to date information.
Firstly, we are glad you’ve taken the time to read this, instead of just proceeding to criminality, such as calling and making death threats, or doxxing our staff. We report all such incidents to the Police and our legal team use every measure we can to ensure that any threat to our team is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Simwood eSMS Limited is a wholesale provider of a Public Electronic Communications Network and Services (PECN/S). Simwood does not operate a call centre. Simwood does not make direct marketing calls. Simwood routes calls for other providers of PECN/S, just like British Telecom, or Vodafone, or TalkTalk. We are not trying to talk to you about solar panels, or life insurance, or [insert latest nuisance call fad here].
Anyone that told you we made those calls has misled you. There is no way to do a reverse lookup on a telephone number in the United Kingdom. You’ll only see the rangeholder, i.e. the PECN/S that Ofcom allocated blocks of 10,000 numbers to. If you see Simwood eSMS Limited, it is because the number in question was in one of thousands of such blocks allocated to us by Ofcom. Have a look here to see that.
Some large PECN/S, such as BT, will often say to people complaining about nuisance calls “Oh, that’s a Simwood number”. What they mean is, that we are the range-holder, not that we made the calls. All BT (or others) can see is just that – which of the 450 odd providers of a PECN/S in the UK has been given blocks of numbers by Ofcom.
We then sub-allocate those numbers to other PECN/S to provide telephony services to consumers and businesses. Their customer might have called you, or, with a fair degree of probability, the number was just spoofed. That is where a malicious actor just pretends to make the call from that number. There is no requirement for those PECN/S we have allocated the number to to route outgoing calls via our network, so we might not even have a record of the call, even if the number wasn’t spoofed.
Unfortunately, spoofing is quite easy, and while there are rules and checks in place at various places in the supply chain for a call, it remains a risk.
How do I stop them?
Your first line of enquiry should be to your own phone company (BT, TalkTalk etc) who have procedures in place to handle the reporting of nuisance calls. Additionally, they can be reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
If you have been the victim of a scam call you should report it to Action Fraud who will issue you with a police crime reference number and investigate further. If you feel the calls are threatening or harassing in nature you should report it to your local police force by calling the non-emergency number: 101. If there is any risk to life, then call 999.
If the call is unwanted marketing, you can opt out of them using the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). If you’ve already registered with the TPS and are still receiving calls you can complain to them and they will escalate the breach to the Information Commissioners Office who have the power to fine the perpetrator.
Don’t you care though?
We do, which is why Simwood operates one of the most advanced nuisance call filtering algorithms in the UK on all our traffic. Upon the introduction of these algorithms, we removed 4.8% of the traffic from our network, over and above what we are legally required to do by Ofcom. We also go further than required in terms of KYC checks on our prospective wholesale customers. Have a look at our blog category on the subject if you’re interested.
We also respond to official requests from law enforcement to suspend numbers with an average response time of a few hours at most, and are engaged with all other major providers of PECN/S to share information and react to complaints.
However, we do not respond to complaints from the general public. As a telecommunications provider that provides services to, for example, major financial institutions, we get complaints about genuine calls made by major banks… websites such as whocalledme.co.uk are rife with misinformation, and we risk disrupting legitimate services as a result. We have established procedures to respond to your chosen telecoms company, the Police, the ICO and Ofcom, whereby appropriate investigations are performed by everyone involved.
P.S The old version of this page is here if you’re nostalgic.
