Phone scams
Lottery Scams
Lottery scams is the most common form of scam nowadays. Crooks send you a text message or phone call, claiming you have won in a lottery you did not remember participating in, and crooks might tell you that you have been entered into the lottery automatically or by a friend or family member, use real lottery company names and even say that their offer is legitimate or has “government approval”.
They will then ask you to pay for a fee in order to have your prize money transferred. They may use excuses such as insurance costs, bank fees, courier charges or government taxes. They might even try to steal your personal information to hack into your bank account.
How to Prevent？
Be wary if you receive such messages and do not remember taking part in that lottery. The text message is most likely a lottery scam if you are asked for your bank account information or to transfer money. Real lottery companies will probably already know how to transfer the money to your bank account and they will deduct charges such as taxes directly from your prize money.
Ringtone Download
Scammers will send a text message to you for you to download a free ringtone that might appeal to you. There is most likely a link to download the file from the Internet.
How to Prevent
When the ringtone is free and you don’t recognise the sender, it is most likely a scam. The link is a website that will probably infect your phone with malware and viruses.
Voting with your phone
Scammers will send you a text message and tell you to vote for elections from your phone. It might look legitimate but it isn’t no matter how real it might seem. This scam is made to prevent victims from officially casting their votes. This scam only appeared due to the recent presidential elections.
How to prevent
Voting with your mobile phone is not possible yet and even if you did reply to the text message, you still have to cast your vote for real with pen and paper. You wouldn’t want the president you voted for not to be elected, do you?
Police Phone Scam
Scammers will try to call you using a number you recognise as the police. They might try to ask about your personal information, probably using excuses such as carrying out investigations. You might see a missed call from a police hotline number such as 1800-255-000 or numbers starting with 999 and be tempted to call back.
How to prevent
The police number will not be shown on your phone if it is a real call from the police. Scammers may be trying to impersonate the police by using Caller ID spoofing technology which hides the real number and displays a different one.