Wangiri, the unanswered ring phone scam: how to defend yourself?

Another one is a Japanese term for the action of doing one ring and then hang up immediately afterwards. It is a phenomenon that is spreading in Italy: at least once it has happened to anyone to receive a ring from an unknown number which then hung up. It’s about the fraud ringing phonetherefore what we need to understand is if he is able to empty the telephone credit and how to defend himself.

The call phone scam, that’s what it is

The ring and hang up phone scam is called Wangiri, but also in English ping call, i.e. bounce call. What exactly is it about?

What happens is that the potential victim receives on the smartphone a phone call, usually at times when you may have difficulty answering (during office hours or at night), which in fact lasts only one ring.

And it is also often repeated over time: several calls from a ring within a few tens of minutes, usually from international prefix numberssuch as Cuba (the number starts with +53), Great Britain (+44), Kosovo (+383), Moldova (+373) or Tunisia (+216).

Until you get just one ring, there is no scam, because it is impossible to empty the credit on your phone with just one ring. The problem occurs when the victim calls back to that number.

You are redirected to a pay phone number, which often no one answers or answers a pre-recorded voice that has the sole purpose of passing the time. The more it passes, the more cybercriminals earn, because wangiri can cost as much as 1.5 euros per second.

Other more elaborate versions provide for the activation of some paid subscription with the recall call or the sending to the potential victim of help messages (for a child, a nephew, a relative in difficulty) with an indication of a telephone number to contact.

How to protect yourself from ring phone scam

The first and easiest way to defend yourself against this scam is to never call back the number that rang. Even more so if the call arrives with a foreign number.

However, there are other ways to further defend yourself, this time using technology, because over the years both the main smartphone operating systems (Android and iOS) have set up countermeasures to combat these phenomena.

How to implement countermeasures on iPhones

On the iPhone there is a list of spam numbers that can be filled in gradually and can also include those of call centers and you can also use an app that acts as a barrier and is able to recognize them automatically.

How to implement countermeasures on Android

All phones Android they use the Google Telephone app, which integrates an excellent anti-spam service: it is the first item in the Settings (icon of 3 dots at the top right), it should be active by default, otherwise it can be activated using both selectors present. Since then, the phone will not even ring in the presence of a spam call or potentially dangerous.