It Seems That One Ring Scams Are Back

I was at a client location today when my iPhone rang. It was a 408 number which is out of  San Jose CA. Seeing as I have a number of companies that I deal with in that corner of the planet, I answered the phone but heard nothing on the other end. So I hung up. Ten seconds later the same number calls back. Again I answered it but again I heard nothing on the other end so I hung up. No further calls came.

Now I was tempted to phone them back. But then I remembered that I wrote about this scam which is called the “one ring” scam before and you can see that story here. But in short, the scam counts on you phoning the number back because you’ll then be billed a pile of money a minute. Now the last time I had heard of this scam, the calls were coming from the country codes of 235 (Chad), 232 (Somalia), 269 (Comoros), strangely 573 (A Missouri area code, but it is possible that it is country code 57 which is Colombia) and 267 (Botswana). So having a number coming from a US area code would be a new angle to this scam. Thus out of an abundance of caution, I reached out to my cellular provider which is TELUS with this:

Their reply came within minutes:

Now this is a great response to my question. Not only did TELUS get back to me quickly and confirm that this was likely a Wangiri or One Ring scam. But they also provided me with a resource so that I could be educated on how to protect myself. Now that is top shelf service. Kudos to TELUS for that.

In any case, since I did not phone the number back, which means that I should be in the clear. But as a just in case thing I blocked the number. Though I strongly suspect that the number was spoofed which means that blocking the number may not make any difference as the spoofed number will likely change.

I’m going to keep a close eye on my next phone bill at the end of the month to ensure that nothing in terms of spurious charges makes it way on there. And I will be on guard for further attempts to execute this scam. You should be on guard as well as clearly the “one ring” scam is back. And to help to keep you safe, I will not only point to my original story on this, but to the write up by TELUS as both have tips to protect yourself.


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