What is a scam call
Mobile devices, as well as the internet, are indispensable in human life. However, they can become the medium of the attraction of cybercriminals. The latter are using phone calls for fraudulent purposes. If they are sending SMS, they might encourage the receiver to call back. When you receive such calls, where you are encouraged to act in one or the other way, we speak about spam. Compared to those calls, where the phone rings once and hanging up again, giving the receiver no time to answer. Those calls are known as “ping calls”. Any of those calls mentioned above are scam calls. They are entirely used to mislead a natural, a legal person or a connected third party to act in a way, which is detrimental to them but advances the spammer.
How to block scam calls
Once you receive a fraudulent call, you must take action. You have four methods to your disposal:
- Integration of forums to combat telephone scams
- Reverse phone lookup
- Verification of telephone security
- List your number with the Do Not Call Register.
Integration of forums to combat fraud calls
Several forums have been created to avoid phone scams. One of them is check-caller.net. These forums are generally free to register and operate interactively. Those forums present a real-time directory where it is easy for customers to perform a reverse search to find out who the caller was. The second advantage of those reverse searches is that you can leave the number of the spammer in a directory to support other people, bothered by spam calls. You also can leave a comment, what the spammer wanted you to do. The advantage of those forums is the interactivity and in real time.
The use of Reverse Phone Lookup
The Reverse Phone Lookup allows you to find out who is calling, while at the same time you remain cautious to avoid future deceitful calls. Using the Reserved Phone LookUp Service is easy. Just follow the provided link, enter the phone number and click search.
Tip: As a rule of the thumb, if you are not sure about a caller and still answer your phone, do not share any sensitive information.
If the spammer tries to bully you into action or threatens you in any way, you have the option to report those spammers. In addition, you should install an App, which protects your phone from those highly unwanted calls. You can download them from Google Play or respectively from the App Store.
Checking the security of your phone
When checking a phone number for security, it is advisable to use a caller identification and anti-spam protection. This option is available on many of the newer phones or can easily be activated on your phone or any other device:
Open the phone application > Go to Settings > Tap more settings or advanced settings > Enable or disable Caller ID and Spam.
To prevent spam calls from ringing, enable the Filter > Suspected spam calls option > Enable. With this feature in place, you will no longer be annoyed by those calls. You will not receive notifications of missed calls or voicemails, but you will still see the filtered calls in your call history.