Phone scam: after spam and phishing, how to protect yourself from “wangiri”, this well-established scam

Les arnaques téléphoniques n’arrêtent pas de se multiplier avec des techniques de plus en plus élaborées pour piéger les consommateurs (photo d’illustration). DragonImages – ENVATO ELEMENTS

Telephone scams continue to multiply with increasingly sophisticated techniques to trap consumers. Among these scams, “wanigri” is a practice that can be particularly costly for victims.

You know spam, spoofing – usurpation of a number – or even vishing – phishing by telephone &ndash but have you heard of "wangiri" ?

In Japanese, this new term literally means "ring and hang up". It refers to a particularly effective and insidious method of extracting money, underlines Squeezer Lemon.

Its principle ? The scammer calls his target and hangs up immediately, leaving only a missed call on the victim's cell phone. Intrigued, the victim may be tempted to call back without realizing that it is a premium rate number.

How it works ?

Depending on the length of the call, the bill can quickly become steep for the victim, to the benefit of the criminals. This technique can be very profitable because it can be automated on a large scale, notes the Mercipourlinfo website. Computer systems allow dozens of simultaneous calls to be made, increasing the chances of trapping victims. The numbers used often come from abroad.

How to protect yourself from it?

To protect yourself from this type of scam, it is advisable to:

stop systematically calling unknown numbers use a call filtering application register on Bloctel, a public service tool that allows you to register telephone numbers on the opposition list or report abusive calls Never communicate personal or banking information by telephone

Please note that during these fraudulent calls, the telephone does not ring often only once and the calls occur most often during business hours or at night.