With growing numbers of phone scams, everyone is searching for ways to stay safe from this curse. Phone scammers often make false promises to gain your confidence, try to instigate your emotions, and even threaten you. They might call you and claim to be a government official so that you somehow break and give them the information that will eventually allow them to access devices and steal your personal details along with hard-earned money.
We can stay safe in the world of phone scams if we consider formulating and implementing various strategies. Some of the excellent practices are discussed here in this article. So without wasting time, let's equip you with some of the best techniques to stay safe from phone scams.
Install call-blocking apps
These applications detect and stop unauthorized robocalls. Installing these call-blocking apps, you can stop fraud attempts by phone scammers. The services may mistakenly classify a genuine caller as spam since they are not always flawless. But, you must thank some applications that feature call labels that let you know which calls could be spam, giving you the choice of answering or rejecting the call. Some of the apps that can be helpful for you in protecting you from robocalls are:
- Robokiller
- Hiya
- Whoscall
- Truecaller
- Call Blocker
- CallApp)
- Call Control
Don’t panic
Scammers know about human psychology very well. They know how to manipulate the situation. Whenever a person is pressurized, there are chances that the victim might hesitate and make a wrong decision in a distressed mental state. Similarly, most of the time, phone fraudsters may exert pressure on you by putting you in place for allegations that you have never committed. They may even threaten to deport you or revoke your licenses with harsh penalties.
You should maintain your composure there and refrain from giving them access to your private information or transferring money through the phone. Give yourself some time to reflect and talk it over with your family or a professional to come up with a solution.
Call back to cross-check
While being employed at a company, you may receive massive spam emails and text messages from various vendors and businesses. A lot of phone scammers target most of the victims through text messages, which is called smishing. Those messages may contain a request for payment for work that has never been done or that you are unaware of. If you click on the provided link or follow the instructions to make the payment to an unknown account, you might lose your money.
So, to be safe, callback verification is a better option to utilize to confirm the authenticity of the messages. Many businessmen use callback verification to avoid becoming a target of phone scams.
If you have received a message from an unknown number, then before reaching them back, you can get the essential information of the anonymous person through PhoneHistory.
Avoid third-party applications for services
There are millions of applications that are made for your benefit. But rising incidents of phone scams have forced us to select the applications cautiously. To save yourself from phone scams, you must avoid using third-party applications for services.
Using third-party applications for services like social networking and banking might grant them unauthorized access. Even worse, giving your login information to a third party might be a phishing attempt to obtain your personal information. Choose the official app for each service rather than applications that combine all your different services into one.
Do not answer unknown calls on the first attempt
When you get a call from an unknown number, reject it and wait for a second call from the same number. By rejecting the calls on the first attempt, you can save yourself from phone scammers who try to reach you through autodialers. Remember that autodialers usually have a list of phone numbers and avoid repeated call attempts because phone scammers are charged high fees when they use auto-dialing. So they refrain from calling you back again. Not picking up unknown calls will increase the chances of your safety from phone scammers.
Get registered on the Do Not Call (DNC) Registry
You can stay safe in the world of phone scams by getting your phone number registered on the Do Not Call Registry. You can get rid of telemarketing or unwanted calls by registering your phone numbers with the Federal Trade Commission. But remember, the DNC Registry does not block every unwanted call you receive time and again. Moreover, you can not avoid calls to prevent charities as well from political candidates.
Be aware of fake charity calls
You may get calls from people who represent themselves as charity collectors or a member of some nonprofit organization. For instance, they can trick you by saying that they are collecting charity for the victims of natural disasters, thus stealing your money. Remember that registered charitable organizations do not push you to send them money for charity's sake over phone calls. Instead, they use an organized meeting to ask you for charity and will never force you to make immediate transactions.
Don’t get tricked by a “One-Ring” Phone Scam
The aim of the one ring is none other than to prompt you to call them back. This callback from your side is the desire of the phone scammers. It is advised not to call them back because these phone scammers might be calling you from outside your country, which can consume your phone credit as the host of the international fees.
Conclusions
A lot of people have become victims of phone scams. So you need to be vigilant and take precautionary measures. You can keep yourself away from scamming by using your cognitive ability and the methods discussed above. Phone scammers usually push you to make immediate transactions. They also blackmail you through false allegations. But there are several ways by which you can stay safe from the attacks of these cyber criminals. We have tried our best to make you aware of the methods phone scammers use for their scams, and we have suggested some tips on keeping you safe from such crooks. We hope these methods will be useful for you.
