Phone Scammers

There’s a new scam going around. It goes like this: your phone rings and you answer it. And then, the scam begins. I could tell you more, but why? After this scam there will be another, then another, and then another. Some scams aim to get your personal information which can be used to steal your identity and then your money. Some scams aim to steal your money directly. Either way, all these scams have one thing in common: your phone rings. I have a solution that works for me.

I have two phones: a primary phone and a mobile phone. When I have to give out my phone number, I give out the primary number. I never give out the mobile number. Why?

Scammers call me every day, sometimes multiple times a day. (I’m on the “Do Not Call” registry but criminals don’t care about that.) Because I get so many scam calls, I no longer answer the phone unless I know the caller. If the call is to my primary phone and the caller is unknown, I let the call go to an answering machine. Not “voicemail” – a  real answering machine. I hear the caller’s message as it is spoken and I can choose to answer the phone then and there. Scammers never leave a message. 

Obviously, I can’t use an answering machine on my mobile phone, so I solved that by not setting up its voicemail. If I answer the phone, the caller can talk to me. If I don’t answer the phone because I don’t recognize the caller ID – well, they should have called the other phone.

(You may be thinking, “What about text messages?” How do I send and receive them on my mobile phone without giving out my mobile number? Answer: my primary phone goes through a VoIP service called magicJack. The service offers a free phone app that allows my mobile phone to use my magicJack account. So long as I use the app, mobile minutes and text messages are free and appear to come from my primary number.)

I keep hoping that one day, phone customers will have the tools necessary to protect themselves from scammers, but that hope is dying. I now believe that such technology already exists, or could exist in short order, but the phone companies don’t want to deploy it because if they do, it will hurt their bottom line. They profit from the scammers. It’s all about the Benjamins.