Vodafone's owner says 98% of the scam calls it studied came through one internet phone firm. The firm says stopping them is hard. Here is what it means for you.
Vodafone's owner, TPG Telecom, says nearly all the scam calls it studied came through one little-known internet phone company. It looked at millions of scam calls on its network between July 2025 and July 2026. It found 98 per cent, more than 24 million calls, came via Symbio. Symbio is owned by Aussie Broadband.
TPG executive Vanessa Hicks said the company hands its evidence to Aussie Broadband each time it spots a scam campaign, so the bad actors can be investigated and blocked. She wants more urgent action closer to the source. She also said it was disappointing that Symbio had faced no financial penalties. TPG denied that its public criticism was about business rivalry.
Symbio sells Australian phone numbers in bulk, so companies can make calls over the internet. Aussie Broadband CEO Brian Maher said Symbio has about 500 customers who resell those numbers. Each may resell to thousands more users. Because Symbio cannot see who those later buyers are, he said, stopping scammers is very difficult. He said persistent bad actors are disconnected.
Ms Hicks said TPG cannot simply cut off another phone company. She said it often has only milliseconds to decide whether an incoming call is real or a scam.
Vodafone's fraud team found that police in Western Australia, Queensland and South Australia, along with the Australian Federal Police, had all been impersonated by calls from Symbio's network. In one week in September, it counted over 2,400 calls from a single scam.
Perth resident Ian Odlum got one of these calls. The caller claimed to be from the Federal Police and emailed him to appear to prove it. The caller said a seized laptop held his personal information and asked him to come to a police station about 200 kilometres away. He refused, and the caller hung up. He called the scam frighteningly realistic.
The regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), said that in this scam the traffic was identified, notices were passed upstream and blocking occurred. It said the apparent sources were multiple overseas phone companies and it found no rule-breaking by an Australian one. It warned Symbio in 2022 and again in 2024 over scam-call failures.
Mr Maher said Aussie Broadband has made significant progress in the past month. It uses detection software and a team of more than 20 people. He said it is the largest wholesaler in the market, so it would see more scam calls.
Australia's Scams Prevention Framework is due to be fully introduced next year. Phone companies are expected to face strict duties, including knowing their customers and the traffic crossing their networks. Firms that fail could have to compensate customers and pay penalties of up to $11 million.
If an unexpected caller says they are police, hang up and call the agency back on a number you look up yourself.
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