Scam calls in France more than double in a year
Complaints about unsolicited calls are second only to those about fibre optic internet
Arcep requires phone operators to display numbers as ‘hidden’ if there is any doubt about the caller
PawelKacperek/Shutterstock
Reports of unsolicited, abusive, and fraudulent calls to people living in France more than doubled in the past year, new figures show.
Consumer complaints in the category of ‘unsolicited or abusive calls and messages’ for 2025 showed a 113% increase on 2024 figures, according to the latest annual J’Alerte l’ARCEP report published by the telecoms and communications regulator Arcep (l’Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques, des postes et de la distribution de la presse) on February 16.
J’Alerte l’ARCEP is a reporting app, which Arcep launched in 2017. It enables individuals and businesses to report problems when interacting with an operator, business, ISP (internet service provider) or postal service.
It confirms an ongoing trend, with reports in the ‘unsolicited calls’ category having increased elevenfold over the past two years, Arcep states.
This makes the category the second-most common reason for people to complain to Arcep every year (23,000 complaints in 2025), behind only complaints about fibre optic internet (32,817 complaints).
The category covers issues including:
Telephone number spoofing (when a scammer uses phone technology to appear as though they are calling from a specific number, when in reality they are not; a practice that is becoming more common)
Abusive calls and unwanted harassment
Fraudulent text messages and calls aiming to scam respondents
Complaints in the category have risen sharply in the past eight years, and began to soar in 2024.
The report showed there were more than 19,000 reports alone of users who suspect that their telephone number had been misused by scammers or less-than-diligent marketers.
Tricky technology
In some cases, it is legal to use a telephone system that enables callers to appear as though they are calling from a different number. For example, businesses may use the system to enable an employee to call a client from their mobile, but appear to be calling from the business’s main landline number. This is legitimate.
However, the technology can also be misused by scammers or fraudsters to impersonate businesses or legitimate entities; for example, a scammer may pretend to be calling from your bank. This is illegal.
Complaints to Arcep will also only show a very limited picture of the problem, because not everyone who receives these calls will contact the regulator.
New measures and investigation
In response to the growing issue, Arcep has implemented several measures. For example, since early December, it has been asking phone operators to display numbers as ‘hidden’ on respondents’ smartphone screens if there is any doubt about the authenticity of the calling number.
This aims to reduce the number of respondents who are at risk of being tricked by a spoof call, as fewer incoming calls will appear as genuine, known numbers on phone screens.
In many cases, operators are able to verify the authenticity of the telephone numbers used, and can display risky numbers as ‘hidden’, or even cut off such calls completely. In fact, since October 2024, Arcep has been requiring operators to cut off calls that cannot be authenticated.
However, the technology is always evolving, and these measures do not appear to have stopped spoofing or fraudulent calls in the long-term.
This has prompted Arcep to open an administrative investigation into mobile operators in January, in a bid to “understand the origin and routing of calls whose numbers have been spoofed and to verify compliance with the caller ID authentication requirements provided for by law”, Arcep has said.
It comes soon after warnings about people in France being targeted by scammers pretending to be calling from the UK or the Netherlands, and a spike in calls pretending to offer energy sales. Since 2023, Arcep has required marketing callers to use specific prefixes, in a bid to provide respondents more information about who might be calling.
