I must admit that mine with the phone is a separate case. Usually I always have it muted when I'm working, then I forget to turn the sound back on and I end up missing a lot of calls. A couple of days ago exactly that happened to me with a very strange call with prefix 212.
At first I thought they were confused, but a few minutes later I saw another missed call with a foreign phone number in the history - same prefix 212-. My first thought was to turn on the sound immediately, as this was all very rare and may have been an important call.
The scam of the missed call with a foreign prefix
Nothing is further from reality. Although now the phone had the sound activated after a few minutes I had a missed call on my mobile again. What was happening? I had the sound on but still hadn't heard the call! After doing some research on the matter, I ended up discovering that this is a more than common practice, and it is nothing more than a scam. I explain.
The problem is not that I am going deaf and not hearing the phone but that they were making me missed calls of just a couple of seconds duration (or less). In the end it is nothing more than a strategy on the part of the scammer on duty to call you back. Of course, phone numbers have a special rate That makes us charge large amounts of money, thus completing a scam that can seriously affect us economically.
Normally this type of scam uses unknown prefixes from countries such as Morocco (212), Nigeria (234), Ivory Coast (225) or Albania (355), among others. It is a trick that what you are looking for is that the receiver does not identify the sender of the call with a special rate number. In Spain, for example, we all know that the prefix 905, as well as the prefixes that go from 803 to 807, have a higher cost for the user, but what happens if you receive a call from 212? Most likely, you will not associate it with a payment number. This way it is much easier for the victim to call back and the scam to be completed.
The authorities have been warning for years
The "from a rare number" missed call scam is nothing new. In fact, bodies such as the Civil Guard and the Police have been warning of this type of deception for years.
“The scam of the missed call continues that uses prefixes like 355, 225, 223 or 234… and they have a special surcharge. If you return the call, it makes you call numbers in distant countries such as Albania or Ghana, ”the Madrid Municipal Police warned back in 2018.
📞Continues the scam of the missed call that uses prefixes such as 355
225
223
or 234
… And they have a special surcharge.
⚠️If you call back, it makes you call numbers from far away countries like Albania or Ghana # TimoLlamadaPerdida pic.twitter.com/c444suVNjH
- Municipal Police of Madrid (@policiademadrid) January 25, 2018
This summer it seems that missed calls have also been made from numbers with a Tunisian prefix.
It seems that I have not been the only one this weekend🙄 #TimoLlamadaPerdida //t.co/TXyzwtF29q
- Mercedes Cavanillas Psychologist #DistanciaSegura (@MCavanillas) June 29, 2020
In my case, the call came from Morocco, but as you can see, the country of origin can be practically anyone. If you detect missed calls of unknown origin and a foreign prefix, it is most likely a scam. Do not take the call, but if you do it out of confusion or distrust and you end up falling into the clutches of scammers "don't eat the brown one": notify your operator and file a complaint at the nearest police station.
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