Spam Group FaceTime Calls with over 32 members

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/

Was happening as well. Noticed it was only coming to iCloud address and not my phone number. My solution was to go into settings->FaceTime and uncheck the iCloud address for FaceTime. I still can get FaceTime requests through the other registered email addresses and my phone number, just not constant group spam. Good luck.

I found they were reaching me by email.

I went into Settings.

Then FaceTime.

and it said they could reach me by email.

I unchecked that, and it stopped immediately.

I called Apple Tech Sppt and they said nothing they can do to stop it on the Apple side of things. They recommend either changing your cell phone number, or changing your Apple ID. Also said you can turn off FaceTime in your settings for a week or two.

This started happening last Thursday evening to my 80 yr mother. I monitor her iPhone/iPad activity in case of scammers and fraud. She doesn't want to change her number or the Apple ID. We are going to disable FaceTime for a few weeks to see if it stops.

This is very annoying. We don't know how they got my moms cell # or her Apple ID. But it continued on again late last night into Sunday morning at 4 am. We had blocked around 70 numbers previously. Now a new group of numbers had called her last night. I had to block more numbers this morning. It is insane. Apple really needs to fix this.

Sadly, the best is to disable FaceTime until this is fixed. In my experience, it is impossible to block numbers as part of the exploitation is to add random numbers faster than you can block. It is not that there are so many numbers in the chat, as this is the exploit to keep the call from being blocked. My guess is that this is from a hacked iPhone or app (~10 lines of code could drive this exploit- look for swift FaceTime for how easy this is). I have reported the exploit to apple and others. Will be looking up some security researchers to spread the word. I suggest that you report this to local/national news organizations and those that report or track security concerns like 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.

This just happened to me as well around 12:30am PST tonight. Got an incoming FaceTime call and didn't recognize the number right away so i declined it. Went to my call log to look and the strange thing is I noticed there was an outgoing call from me to this number at 7:39pm earlier in the evening, as well as an outgoing FaceTime call from me to them 4 minutes later. I know for a fact i did not dial these nor did i accidentally butt dial or anything. Right away that raised a flag and freaked me out a bit. Suddenly I started getting FaceTime calls over and over from the same number but this time with 3 other numbers that I didn't recognize, just like everyone in here has stated. I then googled the number and it hit me....the original number that facetimed me was an old phone number of someone I know, it even still shows their name associated with the number when you Google it. I called the number back but i went straight to vm. Then they text me asking "who are you"? When I explained I did not make the calls, they kept trying to tell me to join the FaceTime so we can figure this out. I kept saying nope, then they said the name of the person i know who had that old number and asked me "does the name xxxx xxxxx ring a bell"?. It unnerved me for a bit at first and I'm not sure why they brought up the name or what the purpose of this scam is but that was it for me and I blocked the number as well as the other numbers in the FaceTime call. They started blowing up my FaceTime still on my MacBook so i signed out of FaceTime and so far that has solved it. I went the extra step of changing my iCloud password as well as updating my iPhone and MacBook OS, just as a precaution because the missed outgoing calls showing up in my call log is still very strange to me. It is definitely a scam of some sort and the fact that everyone here is getting these calls in the middle of the night makes sense because that means most likely the scammers are on the other side of the world doing this during the day. Just be careful everyone and do not answer. Block them as well and if you get any weird call log activity, be safe and change your iCloud password as a precaution. Hope this helps and hope this isn't a new form of scamming like the IRS scam calls or the car warranty expiration scam calls lol

This happened to me yesterday and today. It appears to me that the Group FaceTime call was connected, even though I did not answer it. The callers in the Group FaceTime had my same area code. I was able to block all the callers individually, but I was called again today with a new set of numbers. Obviously there is a new bug with FaceTime Group calls that people can exploit. I have disabled FaceTime and uninstalled the app. I will let you all know if I find any other solutions short of changing my phone number.

I just went into Settings, went to Facetime, and UNCHECKED the part where they can FACETIME YOU BY EMAIL.

Stupidest thing ever.

The calls stopped the second I turned it off.

I went to turn off my FaceTime in settings and I noticed they could use our email address to FaceTime us. So once I unchecked that option it stopped.

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.

This happened to me last night around 1AM. I actually sleep with earbuds in, listening to relaxing sounds through my iPad, and I was woken up by a FaceTime call coming in. I figured it was just someone dialing wrong, but then it wouldn’t stop. After it started ringing a third time, I forced myself to wake up enough to figure out that the heck was going on. I realized they were group calls and immediately started blocking numbers, but every time I got one blocked, a new number would appear. It got up to 12 people on the call by the time I finally just deactivated FaceTime and turned on Do Not Disturb on both my iPad and my phone. I asked around on social media to see if anyone else I knew may have ever had the same problem, and the only real answer I got was that it could be related to a TikTok trend. I poked around a little on TikTok this morning (I have it downloaded but have never really used it) and sure enough, there are several videos that all seem to have been made in the last few days of groups of kids/teens prank calling random numbers on FaceTime just to see if anyone picks up and reacts in a funny enough way for them to post. Super annoying, but I’m hoping that’s all this is! The one thing that weirds me out though, is yesterday morning, I got a bunch of spam calls from different numbers, though all in my state (NJ) in rapid succession, and two of them actually managed to leave voicemails with almost identical clicking sounds. No idea if there’s any relation between the two things but it’s definitely creepy. I really want to write it off as a TikTok prank but the weird calls earlier in the day and the persistence of the FaceTime calls really makes me wonder. I wish someone had a real answer!

This just happened to me last night. I got a FaceTime call with 11 numbers included at around midnight. I set my phone on airplane mode to ignore the calls but I also received a text with just a period symbol on it “.” That was all it had. When I woke up the next day I turned off airplane mode then received that Group FaceTime call almost immediately after. I blocked all 11 numbers and have not received any calls since. I never answered the calls but they would have been calling over and over like crazy if I didn’t set my phone on airplane mode. Blocking the numbers helps if y’all need a way out of these annoying calls.

Happened to me today. Had to disable FaceTime on all my devices. Seemed like it was just adding to a sequence of numbers and within a second, it would call back. No way to block calls fast enough. Huge security hole if not a need to have ability to detect this sort of denial of service nuisance attack.