German telecoms regulator disables 6,200 scam numbers in 2025

Germany's Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) switched off around 6,200 phone numbers for spamming in 2025 and banned billing on more than 2,000 others. The regulator acts directly on citizen complaints filed through its online portal, cutting off the lines used for unsolicited sales, SMS spam, and premium-rate ping calls.

This aggressive regulatory approach directly attacks the operational infrastructure of phone fraud. A working phone number capable of making high-volume outbound calls without being blocked is essential for scam businesses. By disabling these lines, the agency forces operators to incur the replacement cost of buying and "warming up" new numbers.

"Germany has quietly built something most countries don't have: a report button that actually switches the scammer's number off," said Peter, founder of scam-prevention platform Tutela Digitalis. While many European markets rely on telecom providers to develop their own filtering, Germany uses state authority to sever the connection entirely.

The financial deterrents are designed to outweigh the potential profits of the schemes. Unsolicited telemarketing carries fines of up to €300,000 under Germany's unfair-competition law. Furthermore, cutting off billing capabilities means scammers cannot monetize the "ping calls" designed to trick users into calling back premium-rate numbers.

A low-utilization tool

Despite these harsh penalties, the system's true economic impact is limited by low public uptake. "The catch is that almost nobody uses the power they have," Peter said. "The fastest way to hurt a phone scammer is to make their number worthless, and in Germany that takes a two-minute BNetzA form, not a police report."

Filing a report requires only the displayed number, the date and time, a description of the claim, and the victim's own number. Industry-led solutions, such as Deutsche Telekom's 7726 short-code for forwarding spam texts, do not feed into the Bundesnetzagentur's system, meaning those reports lack the regulatory teeth needed to disconnect the offending numbers.

Since December 2022, networks have also been legally required to strip the caller ID from foreign calls attempting to display a German number. This regulatory layer further degrades the business model of impersonation scams, though authorities still advise consumers to verify suspicious contacts through official channels rather than engaging with incoming calls.