Spam Group FaceTime Calls with over 32 members

I just went on the TikTok app and searched "FaceTime random numbers" and a bunch of videos of kids doing this popped up. In some of the comment sections it seems like people are just realizing that this is possibly why they've been getting so many FaceTime calls from unknown numbers. Lots of other kids seem to want to join in, leaving their numbers in the comments.

this happened to me a few nights ago. there was more than 10 people for all of them. since it seemed a little odd, i just rejected them all and it stopped after two nights and like 4 calls in total, didn't need to turn off my facetime or anything.

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.

I have blocked hundreds of numbers since this started and they still add numbers and get through. At this point I am turning of FaceTime to see if that helps. Makes me sad because my grandson loves to FaceTime me. Guess he’ll have to text before he does so I can turn it back on for his call. ☹️

I keep getting blasted with these group facetime calls, people calling, texting asking who this... why isn't Apple doing anything about this?!!!!! it's very frustrating, I just upgraded to an Iphone and I will NEVER do it again! I regret switching, never had this issue before. Upon my research, I discovered through the comments here that this is some stupid challenge on tiktok.

MAKE.IT.STOP. I hate all these stupid kids.

I had to re-enable FaceTime today because my roommate needed to use it for an appointment and only has Samsung herself, and I was very creeped out to see it looked like I was somehow part of a call in progress. It was a group chat with probably about ten numbers and no option to decline the call, only to join it, and when I tapped on it to see if I could find out more info and either hang up the call I appeared to be part of or block the numbers, it told me I couldn't because there was already a blocked number in there! So why was it still allowing me to appear to be part of the call?! Even if it is only because of a TikTok prank, this is annoying and creepy and something needs to be done about it!

At 12:30am, I also was part of a 22 member Facetime call. I was relentlessly called. One of the numbers was one digit off from mine. The Facetime abuse was followed by texts of tik tok videos with my Facebook photo as an icon in the corner! I don’t have tik tok and haven’t used Facebook this year. This is abuse and terrorism, using my photo, identification and number without my consent to used as part of this scam. I did not click anything, but have a screen shot.

It seems like cases have picked up again in the past few weeks. I think there are others who haven’t found this thread yet bc it’s such a strange situation.

Beware. I also received mass texts of tik tok videos with my photo on them. Probably definitely phishing. Something to be aware of if your daughter accidentally clicks a link & they hack into your phone or ipad.

If I had children, I’d be fuming.

Apple just needs to add a **** checkbox to SMS, FaceTime and Phone that makes it so you only get communication initiations from contact lists. Anyone who messages me out of the blue that I'm not expecting is 100% spam.

There might be some exceptions to short-codes like Twilio SMS mass messaging, but those services shouldn't be allowing mass spam. I get stuff from random people, random numbers, it's just crazy.

I'm ready to throw all my apple products in a box and never look back. Sad that these billion dollar companies can't spend a day to add 1 checkbox.

[Edited by Moderator]

You know what - before I go, I'll say one more thing.

I only use the iphone because iMessage, FaceTime and it's ability to work with my other mac products. If all of these are compromised, I have no reason to use them any more.

Just going to leave it at that.

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.

This happened to me, too. I was unable to close the FaceTime call or turn down the volume. I had to eventually shut my phone down. I took screenshots of the two faces that were available. The rest of the images were icons. I went to recent calls and I took screenshots of the phone numbers, too. None of them were from my contacts, nor did I recognize them. I looked up the area codes and most seem to be from Florida.

It sounded like there were some perpetrators in the group and others were unsuspecting recipients like me. One person begged them to leave them alone and stop calling. Another mocked, "call the police; as far as I know, scooping isn't illegal." While yet another said, "scan your cams multiple times." When I turned my phone back on, they tried to call me back twice. I didn't answer.

I, too, would chalk it up to "your refrigerator is running" crank-call kid pranks, except they didn't sound or look like children. Also, the fact that I knew none of these people and my screen froze makes me wonder how about privacy and safety.

I understand how you feel. I have messaging on my other devices. They were all going off at the same time that the spam group FaceTime occurred. So do I need to worry about a virus or someone probing my personal information?

I answered the call in the middle of the night because I thought it might have been a family emergency. I didn't bother to check the number because I was half asleep.

Just don't answer the phone to unknown numbers is victim-blaming and deflection. I hope this is not the final resolution.

I wonder what is meant by “scan your cams multiple times”. That’s a strange statement. If anyone has any insight on what that might mean when face-timing strangers, please share your insight.

Thank you for sharing, very helpful.

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.