the BBB serving Alaska, Oregon and Western Washington <\/a>is alerting the public to this simple\u2014yet extremely effective\u2014ploy that can result in unauthorized charges on wireless statements.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nAutomated dialers blast thousands of random calls to mobile numbers that are gleaned from public listings or obtained from black market dealers\u2014who hustle \u201csucker lists\u201d\u2014but disconnect after one ring, according to a BBB media release. The scammers count on call recipients to notice the missed calls in call logs and return them out of curiosity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
However, return calls are often directed to expensive international hotlines\u2014sometimes peddling \u201cadult entertainment\u201d\u2014that can charge upwards of $19.95 to connect plus additional costs per minute. Charges typically appear on month-end statements as \u201cpremium services.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Consumers and businesses report calls from several different area codes:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Dominican Republic\u2014809<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Jamaica\u2014876<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 British Virgin Islands\u2014284<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Grenada\u2014473<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The illegal process of sneaking unapproved charges onto phone bills is referred to as \u201ccramming\u201d by the Federal Trade Commission, and is one of the most common consumer complaints in America.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While it is unlikely that recipients will be billed for accepting incoming calls, wireless carriers assume that users accept charges by voluntarily returning calls. BBB reminds consumers to not be dumb with smartphones:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Never return calls to unfamiliar foreign numbers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Regularly check wireless statements and immediately report discrepancies.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u2022 Add phone numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry and report violations.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
For more information on the latest scams, visit BBB\u2019s Scam Source<\/a>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First recognized by Better Business Bureaus (BBB) on the East Coast, the \u201cOne Ring\u201d phone scam is now being reported across the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6565\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6565"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}