0850 is not a country code but a Turkish business prefix with no geographic meaning. Block single numbers in your phone or operator app; to stop marketing calls and SMS from real companies, refuse through İYS on e-Devlet or iys.org.tr, and the sender must stop within three business days (Law No. 6563, Article 8). Complain to the Ministry of Trade within three months. Since April 2026 SMS from 0850 numbers is blocked. Fake bank or police calls are qualified fraud under Penal Code Article 158(1)(f) or (l), four to ten years, reported to the prosecutor or police.
Most people who search for "0850" in Türkiye have just missed a call from an unfamiliar number and want to know whether to call back. Some are tired of daily sales calls from banks, telecom resellers and insurers; others have received a call from someone claiming to be a police officer, a prosecutor or a bank employee, and a few have already lost money. The rules changed in 2026. On 2 April 2026 the Minister of Transport and Infrastructure announced measures taken by the Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK): SMS sent from 0850 numbers and from numbers with geographic area codes is no longer delivered, operators and their agents may call and text only their own subscribers, and SMS from abroad containing links is blocked. Separately, since 25 December 2025 qualified fraud cases are heard by the criminal court of first instance rather than the heavy penal court. This article explains how to block these calls, how to use the İleti Yönetim Sistemi to refuse commercial messages, where to complain, and what criminal law offers when a call is fraud rather than a nuisance.
0850 is not a foreign country code. BTK describes numbers with the 850 code as numbers with no geographic meaning, used for location independent services. They are allocated to licensed operators in blocks and then assigned to businesses, which is why banks, airlines, utilities, couriers, call centres and marketing companies use them: the same number works from anywhere in Türkiye.
A call from 0850 therefore tells you only that the line was obtained through a Turkish operator. It does not tell you that the caller is legitimate. Fraudsters rent such lines, route calls through internet telephony, or display a number they do not own. The practical rule is simple: if a caller asks for a password, a one time SMS code, your card details or a money transfer, end the call and contact the institution yourself through the number printed on its official website or on your card.
On Android, open the call log, tap the number and choose "Block" or "Report spam"; many models also allow blocking of all unknown or hidden numbers in the phone app settings. On iPhone, tap the "i" next to the call and choose "Block this Caller"; the "Silence Unknown Callers" setting sends calls from numbers not in your contacts directly to voicemail. Blocking one number does not stop the next one, because marketing and fraud operations change lines frequently.
The mobile operators offer call blocking and spam warning features through their customer apps and customer service. The scope and any monthly charge differ by operator and tariff, so ask your operator what is available on your line.
The April 2026 measures work at network level rather than on your handset. According to the Minister's statement reported by Anadolu Agency on 2 April 2026, the BTK rules on the use of calling line information were amended so that a sender identity consisting only of digits is blocked, meaning SMS from 0850 and geographic numbers cannot be delivered; operators and those acting for them, such as agents and dealers, may call and send SMS or MMS only to their own subscribers; SMS and MMS from abroad containing a link are blocked by authorised operators; and an operator that keeps breaching the rules faces administrative sanctions up to restriction or suspension of its call carrying services. The measures concern SMS and operator marketing. They do not ban voice calls from 0850 numbers in general, so banks and other companies may still call you from such lines.
Apps such as Truecaller identify and block numbers that other users have reported. They are useful, but they work by processing contact data, and some request access to your entire address book. Read the permissions before installing, and do not treat an "unknown" label as proof that a call is safe.
For legitimate businesses, the strongest tool is not blocking but refusal. The Law on the Regulation of Electronic Commerce, Law No. 6563, and the Regulation on Commercial Communication and Commercial Electronic Messages published on 15 July 2015 govern marketing calls, SMS and e-mails.
Article 2(1)(c) of Law No. 6563 defines a commercial electronic message as a message with data, voice or image content sent for commercial purposes by telephone, call centres, fax, automatic dialling machines, smart voice recording systems, e-mail or SMS. A sales call from a call centre on an 0850 line is therefore covered in the same way as a promotional SMS.
Under Article 6(1), commercial electronic messages may be sent only with the recipient's prior consent, given in writing or by electronic means. Two exceptions matter in practice. If you gave your contact details to a business so that it could reach you, it may send messages about changes, use and maintenance of the goods or services it supplied without separate consent. Under Article 6(2), messages may be sent to tradespersons and merchants without prior consent, so if your number is registered for a business, expect more calls. The content must match the consent given and must identify the sender with accessible contact details (Article 7).
Article 8 of Law No. 6563 gives every recipient the right to refuse commercial electronic messages at any time and without giving a reason. The service provider must make refusal easy and at no cost, and must stop sending messages within three business days of receiving the request. Article 11(5) authorised the Ministry of Trade to set up an electronic system for consents and refusals; this is the İleti Yönetim Sistemi, the Message Management System known as İYS. Under the Regulation, consents not recorded in İYS are invalid, providers must report refusals they receive to İYS within three business days, and recipients can exercise the right of refusal directly through İYS.
You can check every brand that holds a consent for your number or e-mail address, and withdraw it separately for calls, SMS and e-mail, through the İYS section of e-Devlet or at iys.org.tr. Foreigners holding a Turkish foreign identity number starting with 98 or 99 can obtain an e-Devlet password at PTT branches with a residence or work permit and passport. A refusal through İYS binds only businesses that work within the system. Fraudsters do not register consents and will ignore it, which is why the criminal law remedies in section 7 below exist.
If a company keeps calling or texting after you refused, or contacted you without consent, you can complain to the Ministry of Trade. Under Article 14 of the Regulation, complaints are filed electronically through e-Devlet, İYS or the Ministry's website (the Commercial Electronic Message Complaint System, TİSS, at tiss.ticaret.gov.tr), or in writing to the provincial directorate of trade where you reside. The complaint must be made within three months of the date the message was sent, so do not wait. Keep a screenshot of the call log or message showing the number, date and time, and of your İYS refusal.
You do not need to identify the company behind an anonymous call yourself: Article 11(7) of Law No. 6563 authorises the Ministry to obtain from BTK the subscriber information of persons sending commercial messages by voice call and SMS. Where a consent was obtained outside İYS, the burden of proving it lies on the service provider.
| Element | Current Rule |
|---|---|
| Calls covered | Commercial calls by telephone, call centre or automatic dialling (Law No. 6563, Article 2(1)(c)) |
| Consent | Prior consent required, except for tradespersons and merchants and messages about goods or services already supplied (Article 6) |
| Refusal | At any time, no reason needed, through İYS or the sender (Article 8) |
| Stopping after refusal | Within three business days (Article 8(3)) |
| Complaint deadline | Three months from the date the message was sent (Regulation, Article 14) |
| Fine for messages without consent | 1,000 to 5,000 Turkish Lira as written in the Law, up to tenfold for bulk sending (Article 12(1)(a) and 12(2)) |
| Fine for ignoring a refusal | 2,000 to 15,000 Turkish Lira as written in the Law (Article 12(1)(c)) |
| Annual increase | Fixed amounts are revalued every 1 January under Article 17(7) of Law No. 5326, so current figures are higher |
The fine is imposed on the business and paid to the State. It does not compensate you. A complaint is nevertheless effective, because repeated fines are expensive for call centres and the fine doubles if the same violation is repeated within one year (Article 12(4)).
BTK regulates operators, not the companies that buy lines from them. Use the BTK Consumer Complaint Notification System at tuketicisikayet.btk.gov.tr, also available through e-Devlet, when the problem lies with your own operator: a blocking service that does not work, an unauthorised value added subscription, or an operator or dealer that keeps calling you although you are not its subscriber, which the April 2026 measures prohibit. The complaint is recorded and forwarded to the operator, and if the answer is unsatisfactory you can ask BTK to examine it.
For a fraudulent website or a link received by SMS, the "İnternet İhbar Başvurusu" service on e-Devlet sends a report to BTK. For problems with a public body, or where you do not know which authority is responsible, a complaint through CİMER, the Presidential Communication Centre, is forwarded to the competent institution. None of these channels replaces a criminal complaint when money or personal data have been taken.
A caller who knows your name, your identity number or the details of a recent purchase obtained that data somewhere. The Law on the Protection of Personal Data, Law No. 6698, known as KVKK, gives you rights against the company that holds it, the data controller. Under Article 11 you may ask whether your data are processed, for what purpose, to whom they were transferred, and request erasure and compensation for unlawful processing.
The procedure has fixed steps. First apply to the data controller in writing (Article 13); it must answer within 30 days. If it refuses, answers insufficiently or does not answer, you may complain to the Personal Data Protection Board within 30 days of learning of the answer and in any event within 60 days of your application (Article 14). You cannot go to the Board without first applying to the controller. The complaint must include your name, address and signature as required by the Law on the Right to Petition; the Board must respond within 60 days, failing which the complaint is deemed rejected (Article 15). The Board can order the controller to remedy the breach and can impose administrative fines; the fine ranges for data security failures and other breaches are explained in our article on penalties for personal data violations under KVKK.
Under Article 123 of the Turkish Penal Code, Law No. 5237, persistently telephoning a person solely to disturb his or her peace is punishable by imprisonment from three months to one year. The offence requires intent to disturb, so ordinary sales calls rarely qualify, while repeated calls from a former partner, a debt collector acting abusively or a harasser may. It is prosecuted only upon complaint, which must be filed within six months of learning of the act and of the offender's identity (Article 73).
Most phone fraud is qualified fraud. Article 158(1) covers fraud committed by using information systems, banks or credit institutions as an instrument (subparagraph f) and fraud by a person introducing himself or herself as a public official or as an employee of a bank, insurance or credit institution (subparagraph l). The penalty is three to ten years' imprisonment and a judicial fine of up to 5,000 days; in cases under (f) and (l) the minimum is four years and the fine may not be less than twice the benefit obtained. The penalty increases by one half where three or more persons act together and is doubled within a criminal organisation (Article 158(3)). Qualified fraud is prosecuted ex officio, so the case continues even if you later lose interest. A typical example: a caller presenting himself as a prosecutor tells a foreign resident that her account is linked to terrorism financing and that she must move her savings to a "safe account". Our separate guide on how to file a fraud complaint in Türkiye covers recovery of the money in detail. Real investigators do not take statements or collect money this way; see our article on receiving a call to testify by phone.
Unlawfully recording personal data is punishable by one to three years' imprisonment (Article 135), and unlawfully giving personal data to another, disseminating it or acquiring it by two to four years (Article 136). Article 17 of Law No. 6698 refers to these provisions for offences relating to personal data. Unlike most privacy offences, Articles 135 and 136 are not subject to complaint (Article 139): the prosecutor acts on any report. A data leak that fed a fraud call can therefore be investigated alongside the fraud itself.
Using another person's bank or credit card without consent is punishable by three to six years' imprisonment under Article 245(1). Foreigners must also be aware of the other side of phone fraud: people who rent out their bank account or card to fraud networks. Since Law No. 7589 of 16 July 2026, Article 158(4) halves the penalty where a person's participation is limited to handing over a card or account access, but it remains a crime. If your account was blocked because stolen money passed through it, read our article on a bank account frozen in Türkiye.
Article 12 of Law No. 7571 of 24 December 2025 removed qualified fraud under Article 158 from the list of offences heard by the ağır ceza mahkemesi, the heavy penal court, in Law No. 5235 on the Establishment, Duties and Powers of the First Instance Courts and Regional Courts of Appeal. Because the upper limit of the penalty is ten years, these cases now go to the asliye ceza mahkemesi, the criminal court of first instance, sitting with a single judge. Cases already pending before a heavy penal court when the change took effect stay there under Provisional Article 7 of Law No. 5235. Persistent calls under Article 123 and data offences under Articles 135 and 136 were already heard by the same court; our guide to the asliye ceza mahkemesi explains how a trial there runs.
Territorial competence is also favourable to victims. Under Article 12(6) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, Law No. 5271, for offences committed by using information systems, banks, credit institutions or cards, the courts of the victim's domicile are also competent, so you can file where you live even if the caller sat in another city.
Under Article 158 of Law No. 5271, a complaint may be made to the Chief Public Prosecutor's Office or to law enforcement, in writing or orally to be recorded in a report; a complaint lodged with a governor's office or a court is forwarded to the prosecutor. In practice you can go to the complaint desk of the courthouse, a police station, a gendarmerie station in rural areas, or the cybercrime branch of the provincial police. The General Directorate of Security advises that a written, signed petition be submitted in person rather than as an e-mailed scan. An interpreter is provided if you do not speak Turkish. If you are abroad, a lawyer in Türkiye can file for you with a power of attorney.
A complaint that is abstract and general may be closed without investigation (Article 158(6)). State the date and time of each call, the number displayed, what was said, what you did, any amounts transferred with the receiving IBAN, and attach the evidence listed in section 10 below.
The police online tip module at onlineislemler.egm.gov.tr, also reachable through e-Devlet, accepts reports, and BTK's internet report service on e-Devlet handles fraudulent websites. These are useful for warning the authorities quickly, but a tip is not a substitute for a signed complaint in which you are recorded as the victim, which you need to follow the file and object to its closure.
If the prosecutor decides not to prosecute, the decision is notified to you and you may object to the criminal judgeship of peace within two weeks (Article 173). Once an indictment is accepted you can join the case as a participant and appeal the judgment. Where money was transferred, ask the prosecutor at once to request seizure of the receiving accounts under Article 128 of Law No. 5271; only a judge can order it, and speed decides whether anything is left.
| Problem | Where to Go |
|---|---|
| Marketing calls or SMS from a company | Refuse through İYS; if they continue, complain to the Ministry of Trade within three months |
| Your operator or its dealer keeps calling | BTK Consumer Complaint Notification System |
| Caller knows data you never gave them | Application to the data controller, then the KVKK Board; criminal complaint under Articles 135 and 136 |
| Calls intended to harass you | Criminal complaint under Article 123 within six months |
| Money lost or attempted fraud | Criminal complaint for qualified fraud; call your bank immediately; request seizure of accounts |
| Fraudulent website or SMS link | BTK internet report service on e-Devlet, plus a criminal complaint if you suffered loss |
Evidence disappears quickly, so collect it on the day of the call:
Be careful with call recordings. Recording a private conversation in which you take part without the other speaker's consent is itself an offence under Article 133(2), punishable by six months to two years' imprisonment or a judicial fine. Turkish courts have in some cases accepted a recording made by a victim at the moment a crime was being committed against him or her, but this is assessed case by case, and a recording should not be published or shared beyond the authorities. You cannot obtain the caller's subscriber data yourself; the prosecutor requests traffic and subscriber records from the operators.
If money has left your account, call your bank's official line first, block the cards and online banking, and ask the bank to flag the receiving account; then file the criminal complaint the same day. If you are being questioned because money passed through your own account, take legal advice before giving a statement through our criminal law services.
No. It is a Turkish prefix with no geographic meaning, used by businesses, so the line was issued in Türkiye, although the caller may be anywhere.
Most phones cannot block a whole prefix without an app, but your operator's blocking features and caller identification apps can filter many such calls; for legitimate companies, refusal through İYS is more effective.
No. Under the BTK measures announced on 2 April 2026, SMS from 0850 numbers and from geographic numbers is not delivered, and operators may text only their own subscribers.
It is the refusal of commercial calls, SMS or e-mails through the İleti Yönetim Sistemi, done on e-Devlet or iys.org.tr; the business must stop within three business days.
Yes. A foreigner with a foreign identity number can log in to e-Devlet with a password obtained from PTT, or use iys.org.tr, and manage consents for a Turkish phone number.
Complain to the Ministry of Trade through e-Devlet, İYS or TİSS within three months of the call, attaching your refusal record and the call log.
No. The administrative fine under Law No. 6563 goes to the State; a claim for damages requires a separate civil action.
No. İYS binds only businesses that work within the system; fraudsters ignore it, so fraud must be reported to the prosecutor or police.
Usually qualified fraud under Article 158(1)(f) or (l) of the Penal Code, punishable by four to ten years and a judicial fine of at least twice the benefit obtained.
Since Law No. 7571 took effect on 25 December 2025, the criminal court of first instance, asliye ceza mahkemesi, hears new qualified fraud cases.
For offences prosecuted only upon complaint, such as Article 123, six months from learning of the act and the offender; qualified fraud and data offences under Articles 135 and 136 are prosecuted ex officio within the limitation period.
Yes. For offences committed through information systems or banks, the courts of the victim's domicile are also competent under Article 12(6) of Law No. 5271.
Recording without consent may breach Article 133(2) of the Penal Code; courts sometimes accept a victim's recording of an ongoing crime, so keep it only for the authorities and take advice first.
Apply to the company first under Article 13 of Law No. 6698; if it does not answer within 30 days or refuses, complain to the KVKK Board within the 30 and 60 day limits of Article 14.
An 0850 number is a Turkish business line, not proof of a legitimate caller. Marketing calls are controlled through consent and refusal under Law No. 6563 and the İYS, with complaints to the Ministry of Trade within three months; operator conduct goes to BTK, whose April 2026 measures cut off SMS from 0850 and geographic numbers; data misuse goes to the data controller and the KVKK Board; and fraud calls are qualified fraud under Article 158 of the Penal Code, now tried by the criminal court of first instance, with complaints possible where you live.
If you lost money to a phone or online scam, if your data was used against you, or if your own account has been blocked in a fraud investigation, the first days decide what can still be traced and recovered. To have the complaint, the seizure request and the data protection steps prepared together, contact our legal team.
