A phone number you don’t know calls you and hangs up without even giving you time to answer? Beware, this is undoubtedly the new fashionable scam!
You may have already happened. You receive a phone call, but it cuts itself off after the first or second ring, without even giving you time to get! Curious, you look at your screen, which displays a missed call from a number that appears in clear but that you do not know. But who can it be? And to find out, there is not thirty-six solutions, you decide to recall this mysterious correspondent. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss something important! Above all, do nothing! You may call a surcharged number and lose money.
It is a fairly widespread telephone scam which bears the name of Wangiri – either literally “one ring and cut” in Japanese -, vocal spam or even ping call. It consists in ringing your phone without giving you time to answer, so that the number is displayed on the list of calls in absence, and thus make you recall a surcharged number which begins with 0899, often located abroad.
To prevent you from wary, the crooks are now making their calls with fixed geographic numbers in 01, 02, 04, etc. And they do not hesitate to call you whatever the time, which can be very painful! Once they have you online, they make sure you keep you there as long as possible.
And the addition can quickly become salty if you are erected. For these malicious actors, the vein can be juicy because they multiply calls by often using automated solutions. Small variant: sometimes they give you time to get, before cutting the discussion just after your “hey?”, Here again so that you recall the number. In short, you will understand, this scam is sure to stir up your curiosity to deceive you!
Be careful however, if your phone rings, but the person hangs up immediately or after a few seconds of silence, it is not necessarily a scam. You may also be dealing with a legitimate telemarketing campaign that uses an automatic numbering system. This will try to connect to an advisor, but the operation can fail, which ends the call abruptly. But, in any case, you don’t miss anything important!
To protect yourself, avoid recalling if you have an absence call from an unknown number. If it is really important, the person will contact you or leave you a message on the answering machine or by SMS.
You can also block unknown numbers directly in your phone settings, opt for an application that identifies unwanted calls or use the detection function of integrated as standard on Android smartphones. And if it turns out that the number that tried to join you actually corresponds to a crook, do not hesitate to report it to 33700the official SMS and unwanted calls platform.