One Ring Phone Scam: Missed Call or Callback Tricks
The One Ring Phone scam, also called the Missed Call, 473 Scam, or Callback Phone Scam, is a fake phone call used to trick the recipients into calling back international phone numbers that are premium pay per-minute services that the recipients will be charged for. The money collected via the premium pay per-minute services will be paid over to the scammers unless the scam is detected and shutdown by the callers' service providers. The danger of these scams is not receiving the phone calls, but calling back the phone numbers.
Most of the international phone numbers that the faked phone calls are made from are the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East and some parts of Europe.
Also, scammers may send a fake message claiming it is urgent and place a premium pay per-minute number in it as a call back number. Once the potential victims receive the message, they will call the number thinking it is an emergency, which they will be charged for.
How the One-Ring Phone Scam Works?
The scammers use auto-dialers or computer phone software to call thousands of cellphone numbers and hang up after one ring. The reason for hanging up after one ring is to allow a missed call message to pop up on the recipients' phones.
Once the recipients see the missed call message, they will call back the phone number because that is what people do when they receive a missed call message.
Now, once a recipient calls back the phone number, he/she will hear a voice recording similar to: "Hello. You've reached the operator, please hold". While holding, the recipient is actually being charged for the international call and for a per-minute premium service, which he/she knows nothing about until it shows up on the recipient’s phone bill.
This scam is a little tricky to detect because the phone calls are from numbers with three-digit area codes that appear as if they are from within the United States, but are actually from international phone numbers, most of which are from the Caribbean.
The area codes the phone calls are from are: 268, 284, 473, 664, 649, 767, 809, 829, 849 and 876, which are from the following countries: Antigua, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Grenada, and the British Virgin Islands.
If you receive any of these missed phone calls, please do not call back the numbers and check your phone bill carefully. If there are charges that you are unaware of, please dispute with your phone provider or carrier.
If you are in the United States and is a victim of the “one-ring” scam, the FTC says that you should resolve the charges with your cell phone carrier. If that doesn’t work, file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
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Note: Some of the information in samples on this website may have been impersonated or spoofed.