Imagine this. You come to your phone and see a missed call on your caller ID. What do you do?
This kind of phone scam goes by several names: as the missed call scam, the one ring phone scam or, recently, also as the wangiri scam.
Wangiri scam. What is it?
‘Wangiri’ is a Japanese word meaning ‘one ring and drop’. And a wangiri call does just that. ‘Wangiri’ calls usually cut off just as the phone rings, leaving a missed call message from an international or unusual number.
No matter the name, these calls have but one goal – to steal your money.
How does the wangiri scam work?
Your phone rings once and then stops. You’re left with a sense of curiosity: who was it who called you? And then, if you’re not careful enough, you call back – and just by calling, you lose a lot of money. It’s because you’re connected to a phone number outside the United States. And, later, charged expensive international call rates.
Don’t let the US number fool you
You should keep your guards up even though the missed call appears to be a US area code. Criminals often use the so called caller ID “spoofing”, which means they’re falsifying the information transmitted to your caller ID display to hide their identity. So they trick you to believe they call from a US number – even if they’re not.
How to stop wangiri scam?
Stopping the wangiri scam is easy, especially if you own a mobile phone with Android. Just follow these steps:
- Get the free Should I Answer app.
- Run the app, choose the Active protection and then the Block negative calls option.
- Whenever a fraud number tries to call you, the app blocks it before it even reaches you.
- If the spam number isn’t in the app’s database yet, you can report it as a spam by adding a negative review.
- And done! No more spam calls for you 🙂
If you are using a mobile phone with iOS, you can get the Should I Answer app for iOS. It’s very similar to the Android version, only much more simpler.
Get the PROTECTION AGAINST SCAM for free (Android)
or get the Should I Answer app for iOS