POLICE ARE WARNING PEOPLE TO NEVER, EVER ANSWER CALLS FROM THESE 5 AREA CODES
By Timfly
Police are warning everyone to watch out for a dangerous phone scam. People who fall for it may end up paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars. It’s called the One-Ring Phone Scam.
Phone scams have been around practically since the machine was invented. One-Ring is just the latest variation on a decades-old problem.
Most of us are wise to the typical phone scams, like criminals posing as the IRS to get your financial information. One-Ring works a bit differently.
The goal of this scam is to trick people into making expensive international calls without knowing it.
Then, the scammers might automatically connect the caller to an expensive pay-per-minute line. They might also try to manipulate the callers into giving up important information like credit card details.
This scam has been around in one form or another for years, but scammers are getting more sophisticated. With that in mind, police are warning everyone to avoid calling back unusual numbers.
You can identify numbers that might be dangerous by remembering a few key area codes.
The Caroline County Sheriff’s Office in Virginia recently published an important warning to their Facebook page about the One-Ring scam.
They summarize the scam briefly, explaining that scammers work by calling victims with a phone number that looks like an ordinary domestic number.
However, these numbers are actually carefully chosen foreign numbers that just look like domestic numbers.
Caroline County makes a point of linking out to a special fact sheet prepared by the Federal Communications Commission.
The FCC explains the scam carefully, noting:
“Some wireless consumers receive calls from phone numbers with three-digit area codes that appear to be domestic, but are actually associated with international pay-per-call phone numbers. (For example, “649” goes to the Turks and Caicos, “809” goes to the Dominican Republic, “284” goes to the British Virgin Islands, and “876” goes to Jamaica.)
These calls often disconnect after one ring, not giving the consumer time to answer the call and tempting them to return the call.
If you receive a call like this and do not recognize the number of the incoming call, do not return the call.”
Almost all of these calls come from international numbers in the Caribbean or in Canada. Some may also come from Eastern Europe.
These international phone numbers are selected because they look a lot like ordinary U.S. phone numbers, and people might be tricked into returning a missed call.
How Best Avoid the Scam
Check any unfamiliar area codes before returning calls;
Be aware that many 3-digit area codes (mostly in the Caribbean) connect callers to international telephone numbers.
If you do not otherwise make international calls, ask your local or wireless phone company to block outgoing international calls on your line.
source: FCC.GOV
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