Spam Group FaceTime Calls with over 32 members

I'm getting these MASS facetime calls... I don't know any of the numbers, but they're all my area code.

I picked up once and saw some people talking and hung up immediately.

I have no idea what this is and they won't stop.

How TF do I make it stop? 😩

I am getting this date and night. Calls text and face time from random numbers and not giving me an option to block numbers. Just to report it to junk on the iCloud. Sick to death of it. I answer one face time on it and was a young teenage girl. Other time random art on walls are creepy old men. Makes me feel sick. I do not want to be part in any of these scams or if they are trying out random numbers. But how can you stop it. Should I report to the police? How can I stop this? Please someone help me

This has just happened to me- a group of about 7 calling with one an American number. They’ve called about 3 times in the last hour.. blocked the numbers but still didn’t have an option to reject the call... as MrIcedTea said I decided just to turn my FaceTime off for the time being.

A quick google search bought up an article about a bug last year with FaceTime.m where callers could hearyou before you answered the call! (.https://www.techlicious.com/blog/facetime-bug-lets-people-eavesdrop/) hopefully it isn’t a similar thing

This has just happened to my younger sister. It started in the middle of the night last night, and she’s been getting FaceTime calls ever since from groups. My sister is young and really shaken up by it, and the only thing we can think of doing is deleting FaceTime, which is unfortunate as she uses it quite a lot to FaceTime her friends when they’re doing homework. We did try and block the numbers but when you go on the FaceTime app it will still show calls that are currently undergoing.

You might want to consider removing your cell # from FaceTime settings but leave your Apple ID as a method of your contacts can reach you on FaceTime by entering your Apple ID. This was recommended by a senior Apple tech. My 80 year old mom is having the same thing happen to her. Apple recommends un-checking your phone number under FaceTime settings "where you can be reached" and this should stop the unwanted FaceTime group calls.

The Apple senior advisor also said to leave Feedback to Apple on what needs to be changed on FaceTime per this link:

> https://www.apple.com/feedback/

Other resources:

Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams  

Add or remove your phone number in Messages or FaceTime  

Use FaceTime with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch 

Report Abuse to the Federal Trade Commission:

https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/

Yes I’m hoping the same! But the other night, I got the calls at 1 in the morning. Then all of a sudden people that were also getting calls starting messaging in a group chat to “stop calling them”. As numbers were blocked, 2 numbers kept adding new people. I blocked those numbers and have turned off my FaceTime for the time being. It has stopped for now, but it’s freaky to me

This happened to me just now!

I answered it because it’s a work phone and I’m on call. When I did, several video boxes popped up and they did have video in it. No people, just looked like walls with some art. When I realized what it was, I hung up and it called back 11 more times.

This happened to me last night around 3am! They called at least 10 times, until I turned off my FaceTime. many different numbers that I didn’t recognize. The weirdest part was when I texted “who are you” or “wtf” they responded with “can you join for a minute?”

I would love to know what’s up with this.

This may not be what’s happening to you but my “FaceTime” started yesterday morning. I went online to figure out why this was happening like many of you. I was afraid that someone was trying to hack my phone. Couldn’t find anything!! Then I stumbled on this thread. It was the only thing even remotely like what was happening to me. My 14 yo daughter told me it’s a terrible Tik Tok trend that’s been happening since 2018! She said it will come up on “for you” page on Tik Tok. These kids are taking videos of people who actually answer the FaceTime them post it on Tik Tok. They think it’s funny so other kids do the same thing. And it goes on and on. And here we all are. It seems the o my thing to do is turn off your FaceTime for a few weeks. This is beyond annoying. Below happened tonight after I turned FaceTime back on to talk to my 82 yo mother. Apparently, all they need to do is find one person to join them and they can add your number back into this terrible “joke”. Good luck to all of you.

I no longer receive the spam calls. This is what I did to stop them. Go into Settings--FaceTime, and toggle it off. If you need to receive or make a FaceTime call in the future, just text or call the person (or people) that you would like to talk to (or have them text or call you), and toggle FaceTime back on for the call. I know this is a bit of a hassle, but it is the only way I know to stop the spam calls. There is an easy solution for this problem if Apple would only consider it. There should be a setting in FaceTime that allows you to only receive FaceTime calls from people in your contact list. Just my opinion, for what it's worth.

Hey guys! Sorry to bump after a year. I got my first facetime spam starting 4 days ago - it has been non-stop, over 300 numbers blocked so far.

My 3 year old daughter has been accidentally answering them and going on video without a t-shirt on.

Apple said there's no feature "Only allow initial communication from contacts list" in:

• FaceTime
• iMessage
• SMS
• Phone

I'm wondering at what point my daughter will end up in some archive of "children captured from facetime spam calls" and who I will need to sue and how much to sue for? My guess is Apple.com (the company) since my carrier (AT&T) has no control over FaceTime.

I have FaceTime turned off everywhere and we still get notifications to click that turn everything back on and enter these group calls with spammers.

I know there's going to be some trolls replying to me like "why's your kid using an iPad" - my kid uses it for education.

Does anyone have any idea what the scam is here? This forum is full of people saying the same thing happened to them but no one has any idea what it’s about. Side note same thing happened to me today, I have no idea what it’s about.

I 100% agree! When this happened to me back in May, my girlfriend didn’t have an iPhone so we were already using WhatsApp. So shutting off FaceTime for a week was something I could manage.

From reading a lot of these posts, it seems that the outcome of what occurs after you answer the phone is somewhat different for everyone.

One thing that we all have in common is that we are being spammed through our video, which makes me feel uncomfortable. Getting a regular spam phone call is annoying as ****, but I am never spooked. Video chats are much more personal, so when a stranger or someone we don’t know is trying to breach that threshold it is quite uncomfortable, especially with 30 other phone numbers you have never encountered before.

I am getting this type of FaceTime Calls with 18-20 total people not my contacts. This is bad what apple is doing about it? Since two days this started, this my work phone so I did answered, all other phone was smiley face, they said Ola, I hung up as soon as I realized it is spam calls.

Yes this has happened to me the last 2 nights. I had to turn off my FaceTime to make it stop. I turned FaceTime back on an hour ago, to see if it stopped and I immediately received more calls. All numbers I do not know and multiple calls successively. I am from New York so I don’t know if that matters.