Insights

What Spoofing Looks Like and Why Financial Institutions Can’t Ignore It

Jul 15, 2025

It often begins with a customer raising a concern: someone contacts your support center about a suspicious call. The number displayed matched the one printed on their debit card, the voice sounded professional and the questions seemed routine – just enough to feel legitimate.

Except it wasn't. That call didn't come from your bank. It came from a scammer who spoofed your number and nearly convinced a loyal customer to share sensitive information. Moments like this put your brand’s trust and your customers’ confidence on the line.

Your Phone Number Is More Than a Contact Point, It’s a Symbol of Trust

When a customer sees your financial institution’s name or number flash across their screen, it communicates confidence, safety and urgency. That’s what makes it such an appealing target for spoofing.

Spoofing isn’t new, but it’s evolving. As voice continues to be a preferred channel for urgent outreach like fraud alerts, loan updates and card servicing, spoofing has become a direct threat to how financial institutions connect with their customers.

The worst part? Most organizations don’t even realize it’s happening until the damage is done.

What Exactly Is Spoofing?

Spoofing is the act of disguising a call to appear as if it’s coming from a legitimate source like your customer support line, your fraud department or your Toll-Free number.

Today’s scammers are not guessing, they’re strategic. They choose numbers and departments that customers inherently trust. And because these calls often look legitimate on the surface, they bypass typical fraud detection measures.

Why Financial Institutions Are Prime Targets

When someone impersonates your financial institution, customers don’t stop to validate — they act. That’s what fraudsters count on. With a spoofed caller ID, they can:

• Trick customers into revealing personal information

• Interrupt real-time fraud investigations with misinformation

• Instill doubt about your legitimate voice communications

They’re no longer relying on generic numbers or overseas traffic. They’re targeting:

• Inbound-only or dormant lines that are rarely monitored

• Numbers associated with high-trust teams, like card services and fraud prevention

• Institutions without a clear, centralized view of how their number assets are being used or misused

The impact is twofold: fraud losses on one hand and degraded customer confidence on the other. For financial institutions, that second risk may be even more damaging. In a sector where reputation is everything, a single spoofed call can unravel years of carefully built trust.

Fraudsters Are Getting Bolder — And the Data Proves It

According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), in 2024 alone, phishing and spoofing schemes led to over $70 million in reported losses. More than 70% of telecom leaders say fraud attempts are increasing in frequency and sophistication.

These aren’t background statistics, they’re flashing warnings for fraud teams, compliance leaders and CX strategists. Threats are growing, the voice channel is being exploited and customers are losing confidence.

It’s no longer about awareness, it’s about action. Take the lead on voice channel protection with Somos’ RealBrand™. Financial institutions are empowered with access to real-time visibility into their number ecosystem, across voice and text, so you can detect, respond and remediate faster.

With RealBrand, your team can:

• Identify spoofed numbers before the customer calls

• Monitor call labels across carriers and analytics platforms

• Remediate mislabeling and submit takedown requests for impersonation

• Protect high-risk numbers like Toll-Free support lines and inbound-only accounts

• Take numbers used for impersonation off the network to prevent future misuse

You’re no longer waiting for complaints, you’re working from a position of insight and control. Institutions that want to lead on customer trust and fraud prevention are already moving. They’re embedding visibility into their voice infrastructure and giving their fraud teams the ability to act in real time. By using RealBrand, they are reducing reliance on customer reports and proactively protecting brand equity before another spoofed call makes it through.

Ready to find out how your phone numbers are showing up across the telecom ecosystem? Connect with a Somos team member today at connect@somos.com and take the first step towards a more secure and trusted future.