Spammers use 'Useful Call' label to bypass call screening
Spammers have come up with a new way to prevent people from hanging up on unknown numbers, journalists from NGS24.RU have noted and mobile operators confirmed. They are using the 'Useful Call' label, which is meant for trusted calls, to disguise spam calls.
Feb 20, 2026 0
A common spam call begins with the question: «Hello, were you interested in buying an apartment in Moscow?»
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Spammers have come up with a new way to prevent people from hanging up on calls from unknown numbers, journalists from NGS24.RU have noted and mobile operators have confirmed.
The NGS24.RU correspondent was bombarded with calls from at least nine unknown numbers over three days.
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Starting September 1, 2025, calls from individual entrepreneurs and companies in Russia must be labeled by law — so that a person can immediately see who is calling. In January of this year, an NGS24.RU correspondent received calls from at least nine unknown numbers over three days. Seven of them were identified as «LLC Useful Call: Advertisement». Usually, the «Useful Call» label was used for trustworthy calls.
The correspondent, however, did not answer the calls. Attempts to call back were unsuccessful — the call was immediately dropped.
But similar stories have been described since autumn on the public pages of VKontakte and on Pikabu. Judging by the comments there, people were offered to buy an apartment in Moscow, Vladivostok, a car, or were offered other services and goods.
According to Kontur.Focus, there are currently 11 companies in Russia called «Useful Call». Most are in Moscow and St. Petersburg, with one each in Omsk, Nizhny Tagil and Ufa. The main activity for many is advertising, law, working with databases and software, but there is also, for example, medicine.
Four of these companies were created with the name «Useful Call» in September–December 2025, the others were previously called differently, but changed their name in the same period. When calling the number of one Moscow company listed in Kontur.Focus, a man answered the correspondent and said that he used to own the company, but sold it «a long time ago» and does not know who currently manages the firm or what it does. Other companies did not answer.
An industry source, who asked not to be named, told NGS24.RU that most likely, companies with this name are indeed created specifically for cold calling and «mislead the subscriber». In his opinion, «Useful Call» has entered into an agreement with a mobile operator to label calls and «is doing great».
«In this case, this is a gap in the legislation — you can register an LLC with such a name, you can conclude an agreement with an operator to label calls, and you can call subscribers,» the interlocutor claims.
The press service of Megafon told NGS24.RU that «Useful Call», which is calling people, complies with the law if this name is valid and the category corresponds to the main OKVED (main type of activity).
«However, it cannot be denied that this creates discomfort for subscribers and may mislead them. As an operator, we carefully analyze such cases that arise after the introduction of the call labeling law, and explain to customers that even with labeling, there will be complaints from subscribers,» the operator«s press service explained.
In addition, the company is developing technical solutions for managing incoming calls.
«In particular, we plan to introduce an option that will display information that the call is mass. This will help to quickly assess the advisability of answering,» they added.
In August, NGS24.RU reported on how residents of Krasnoyarsk are being offered to sell their Telegram accounts, and what this could lead to.
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