How to know when scammers call

1. Most sales phone calls are made by legitimate companies promoting legitimate products or services. But where honest businesses are looking for new customers, so are scammers. Toll fraud is a multi-million dollar business that involves the sale of everything from bad or non-existent investments to the sale of misrepresented products and services. If you have a phone, you are a prospect, becoming a victim is largely up to you.
2. There is no way to positively determine if a sales call is legitimate simply by talking to someone on the phone. No matter what or how many questions you ask, expert scammers have practiced the answers. That’s why sales calls should be treated with caution. Persons or companies unknown to you should be verified before buying or investing. Legitimate callers have nothing to hide.
3. Phone scammers probably know more about you than you think. Depending on where they got your name in the first place, they may know your age and income, health and hobbies, occupation and marital status, education, the house you live in, what magazines you read, and whether you’ve shopped over the phone. in the past. Even if your name comes from the phone book, phone scammers (and women) assume that, like most people, you’d be interested in earning more, that you’re open to negotiation, that you’re basically sympathetic to people in needs, and is reluctant to be rude to someone on the phone. As admirable as these features may be, they help make the scammer’s job easier. Fraudsters also exploit less admirable characteristics, such as greed.
4. Fraudulent telemarketers have one thing in common: they are skilled liars and experts at verbal ‘fake work’. Your success depends on it. Many are trained to “say what it takes” by operators in “boiler rooms” where they work in rows of telephone desks making hundreds of repetitive calls, hour after hour. The first words spoken by most toll fraud victims are “the caller sounded so believable…”
5. Toll fraud perpetrators are extremely good at sounding like they represent legitimate business. They offer investments, sell subscriptions, provide home and office products, promote travel and vacation plans, describe job opportunities, solicit donations, and the list goes on. Never assume you’ll “know a phone scare when you hear it.” Even if you’ve read stories about the types of schemes being practiced most often, innovative scammers are constantly advertising new ones.
6. The motto of telemarketing scammers is, “just give us a few good ‘mooches,'” one of the terms they use to describe their victims. Although most victims are usually smart and prudent people, even the scammers express their amazement at the number of people who “seem to be carrying their checkbooks by the phone.” Sadly, some families part with the savings they worked for years to accumulate on the basis of little more than a 15-minute phone conversation, less time than they would spend considering an appliance purchase.
7. The person who “initiates” the phone call can be you. It’s not uncommon for phone crooks to use direct mail and advertise in reputable publications to encourage prospects to make the initial contact. It’s another way scammers mimic the perfectly acceptable marketing practices of legitimate businesses. So just because you’ve written or called to get “additional information” about an investment, product or service doesn’t mean you should be any less cautious about buying from someone you don’t know over the phone.
8. Victims of a phone scam rarely get their money back or, at best, only pennies on the dollar. Despite the efforts of law enforcement and regulatory agencies to provide victims with whatever help they can, scammers generally do what other people do when they get money: they spend it!
9. Before calling back any number, you can do a quick reverse lookup of the phone number and learn more about the telemarketer than they have about you.

With broadband Internet services and our wireless phones, it’s actually possible to do a background check with a reverse phone number lookup while scammers are still on the phone with you.