As stated before; these numbers are "spoofed" this involves using software (which in the UK requires authorisation from the owner of the number, but foreign service providers are enabling this setting without doing the checks) to hide their actual phone number behind the caller ID of another real number.
Spoofing is technically legal, it allows legitimate sharing of a single phone number, so businesses who have remote workers can call customers and suppliers as if they are in the same office. The illegitimate use of Caller ID spoofing is what allows these scammers to hide and look like the organisations they are impersonating.
Until OFCOM take action against the virtual number providers who are issuing virtual phone lines without ID checks, this will unfortunately continue.
The only answer is to change the caller ID system to include a verification (like a blue tick on social media accounts) character, e.g. a "V" at the start of each verified number. This would not be available for spoofed numbers, so everyone could be assured if the incoming phone number on screen looks like "V+44(O)1234 56789O" then it's genuine, but if it reads "+44(O)1234 56789O", it is definitely a spoofed copy, or vice versa, every spoofed number must begin with "S"? Maybe someone from OFCOM will read this and submit the idea?
