People are receiving CallBack, Wangiri, "Premium CallBack", or One-Ring scam phone calls from Comoros with telephone number prefix or area code +269. Comoros or The Comoro Islands are situated off the south-east coast of Africa and are also near Mozambique and Madagascar, so unless you know someone from there, you are being advised to ignore it or be vigilant when answering or ringing back unknown numbers.
How the Comoros 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 some form of voice recording or nothing. 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.
People have reported receiving missed calls from the Seychelles, Tonga, Mauritania, Austria (+43), Morocco (+212), Ghana (+233), Chad (+235), Canada (+1) and Ivory Coast (+225).
Here is some tips on how to avoid getting scammed:
- Avoid answering calls from numbers that you cannot identify, especially if you are not expecting a call.
- Hang up immediately, on calls where there appears to be no recipient on the other end.
- Be wary of multiple calls being received from the same number.
- Do not call back any number that leaves you a blank voicemail message.
- Do not provide any personal information for example – banking details/PPS number/credit card details/name and address/passport number etc.