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Did you notice a surge in the number of phone calls from unknown international numbers from countries like the United States of America, Iran, Oman, and more? You are not alone, as there is a highly sophisticated racket behind these calls, trying to lure people with fake job offers, lottery money, or a gift. At the same time, they steal your personal and banking details to take over your bank account or social media accounts.
Here are a few important things to keep in mind while answering a call from an unknown international phone number:
Not all the calls from an unknown international phone number are from scammers. However, a majority of them are. In specific situations, you may receive a legitimate call from a friend or family member abroad, but the majority of other calls are likely to be from scammers.
With easy access to international SIM cards from various service providers, including eSIM, one need not have to visit a different country to procure these SIM cards, and most of these calls from unknown international numbers come from within India.
The modus operandi of these scammers varies from case to case. While some just give a missed call to induce curiosity, where you yourself will call them back, some might call you multiple times, stating they are from a courier company or a hiring agency, and they have an important and time-sensitive update for you.
In either of these cases, it is best to not receive those calls or call them back. Not just that, it is also important to use services like Truecaller, which acts as a first layer of defence against these scam calls from international phone numbers, especially if the same number is used to scam others as well.
Another thing that one can do is to block and report those phone numbers. And if you are receiving these calls from apps like WhatsApp, make sure to enable options like silent unknown calls to automatically block these calls.
Always look at the beginning of the phone number, if it says anything other than +91, it is a call from an international phone number and just cut the call. If the phone number begins with +92 (Pakistan), +84 (Vietnam), +62 (Indonesia), +1 (USA), or +98 (Iran), try not to pick up the call, as these calls will come at an expense, as some of these calls can cost a lot of money every minute.
If you are getting phone calls from multiple unknown international numbers, then there is a possibility that your phone number might have leaked as a part of a big database hack, and in this case, enabling DND will also help in reducing phone calls from unknown phone numbers.
When it comes to scams, it is always better to be safe than sorry. Think twice before receiving an unknown call or calling them back, and if you feel something isn’t right, block and report the same, which will also help others.
