Scammers are increasingly turning to scams that involve contacting victims by telephone or mobile phone calls or text messages.
The majority of us are not fooled by scammers clumsy attempts to contact us but the phone calls themselves are annoying and time consuming to deal with. We suggest a number of practical ways to deal with such calls and texts.
How to quickly deal with suspected scam phone calls
Scam phone calls are from “unknown” callers or callers with “No Caller ID”.
If the phone number is not from a “known” or “trusted” caller, let the call ring out by not answering it…if the call is genuine, the caller will leave a brief voicemail or message. The majority of scammers will not.
The important thing to remember here, is that scammers rarely leave voice message as it is a way of identifying themselves and consumes time. Ignore their calls and they simply move onto annoy someone else.
You know the people and phone numbers that you trust. By adding these “trusted” numbers to the built in contact-list on your mobile phone, as calls come in, they will be identified as “known” numbers and the callers name will show up. You can then choose to answer the call or not.
Alternatively, you can also add known scam or telemarketer phone numbers to a generic contact such as “Telemarketers”. If the caller tries to call again from the same number, they will be identified as “Telemarketers” and you can ignore the call.
There is also a setting on iPhones that give you the option to “Block this caller” thus automatically stopping calls from these numbers.
How to “Trust” a phone number
Simply add the known trusted to your contact or address book manually
(iPhone) goto the “Contacts App”
and hit the “+” button in the top right of the iPhone and add the phone number and name of your trusted contact
or add the received phone number to your address book as follows
Simply maintain your trusted contacts and phone numbers address book and ignore new incoming calls that you cannot identify.
How to deal with suspected scam text messages
If you are expecting a text message with a link,,, then ok, you can probably trust the link if it arrives within seconds or minutes of your request…. but be careful on what you click from a text or SMS message especially if the message was unsolicited.
Most legitimate companies such as ATO, Centerlink, Australia Post will NOT usually send you a link via text message but not all companies abide by such protocols.
In general, DO NOT TRUST any links to websites that are sent by SMS or Text message.
:jk:
