Phishing scams are particularly nasty and invasive scams which are, sadly, becoming more and more prevalent these days. If you don’t know what a phishing scam is, let us enlighten you.

Voice Phishing Scams

A voice phishing scam takes place, generally, when you receive an unsolicited phone call (though it can be an email, Whatsapp voice mail etc) from someone claiming to be an official with, for example, your bank or the police force in order to get your personal, financial details from you. They will often meet reluctance or suspicion with threats to close accounts, cut off cards, or, in some extreme cases, with legal action.

Warm up, Familiarization Calls

Sometimes you may get a particularly smart set of fraudsters who apply “warm up” calls to earn trust and build a foundation from which they can launch their scams. These tend to be calls where they pose as a member of the organization in question, but do not try to get your details from you.

How to avoid getting stung by voice Phishing Scams

First and foremost, you should never give out your personal banking details over the phone, and you should keep in mind that officials will NEVER ask for these details from you. If you receive a call that makes you feel uncomfortable or suspicious you should note down who the person claims to be and where they say they are representing, and then find an official and trusted number for this institution or organization. Finally, tell this caller that you will call the branch or organization directly to deal with the issue. If they make an attempt to stop you from doing this consider it a warning sign.

Tricks of the scam trade

There are some tricks that Voice phishing scams can employ to catch you out even after you hang up. They may keep your line open, for example, by not hanging up when you do and intercepting your next call. At this point they will impersonate the people you called. To avoid this try using a different telephone line or by calling a friend or relative first.

If you do this you will be harder to trick when it comes to phishing scams.