Don’t Say Yes!!
Have you ever received a phone call on your cell phone from a number you didn’t recognize? Not wanting to be rude you answer the phone only to hear the hollow sound of silence in your ear, and you wonder if the person on the other side has hung up. You say hello a few times, thinking it may just be a bad connection. Just as you begin to disconnect, you hear a realistic and over enthusiastic voice of some young lady telling you that you’ve been chosen to take a cruise for two to the Bahamas. The voice speaks at a pace that prevents you from interrupting, plus you wouldn’t want to be rude, so you listen a little longer. By now you know that this is a pitch for something — something that you know you’re not interested in, but you allow the pitch to continue until it’s appropriate to say “no, thank you.” At some point during the phone call, the “lady” says something to the effect, “I’m having difficulty hearing you, can you hear me?” And without pause, you respond by saying “yes.”
Congratulations! Not for winning a trip to the Bahamas, that was never really in the cards. Nope, congratulations on becoming the next victim of a phone scam devised to steal your identity. That enthusiastic lady’s voice isn’t even a person; rather it’s the voice of a computer. When you answered by saying yes, your voice was being recorded and will be used as your agreeing to purchase a particular product.
The scam is very convincing and seemingly innocuous to the victim at first. Typically you’ll hang up the phone after realizing this was a “sales pitch.” Unfortunately, this is when the scammers get to work using your recorded voice response as agreeing to purchase a product or subscribe to a program.
To defend against phone scammers, you should do several things. First, develop a contact list of those you are willing to accept calls from. When your phone rings and you see it’s from a contact, it’s ok to answer. Let your contacts know that if they’re calling from a different number, they should text you first. Second, do not answer calls from unknown numbers. Scammers will use local area code to fool you into thinking someone local is calling. This is to make the call appear authentic. Resist the urge to answer and allow them to leave a voicemail. Scammers don’t leave voicemails.
Remember, the sophistication of these scams is their simplicity. The purpose of the scammer is to get you to say “yes,” and they are superb at constructing a narrative that leads you to do so. You may find that after everything you’ve read here, you still find yourself on the phone with a scammer. It’s not too late! Say nothing and hang up.
Another phone scam being investigated by the FBI involves a bogus IRS threat of jail time if payment is not made (note: the IRS does not make phone calls to consumers). The scammers are very convincing and claim to net 80 thousand dollars every week. These scammers claim to be Pakistani and that the money profited by them goes to fund terror groups.
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