Mobile phone scams

Mobile phone scams involves a variety of scams that either persuade you to buy phone-related products or services that turn out to be substandard or non-existent; or to make phone calls or texts to premium services by accident; or to unknowingly sign up to expensive subscription services.

There are a variety of mobile phone scams around the world. Let's see some of the most common:

Text message scams

Sometimes you'll received a text from some strange three or five digit number you don’t recognise, but it’ll be worded as if it's from a friend. For instance: 'Hi, it's Mike. I'm back! When do you want to catch up?' So you call it back, thinking you’re doing them a favour by telling them they’ve got the wrong person, only to be charged a fortune for a premium rate call. Or you may text back and end up engaging in a lengthy SMS exchange. You find out that you’ve been charged a high rate for your texts and sometimes for your received texts as well.

Phone insurance scams

If you’ve bought a new mobile phone, a fraudster may call you to sell you phone insurance, making out that they are calling from the shop where you bought it from, or from your mobile phone network. At best, you end up with poor quality phone insurance or, at worst, none at all.

Steal your personal information and your mobile phone

Mobiles phones and smart devices like iPads are now capable of holding a lot of your personal information such as access to your emails and mobile banking apps, it’s more important than ever to know how to keep data on your mobile phone or device secure. Some smartphones pre-installed a security apps to secure your personal data, if you couldn't found the related apps, just surf online or the app store to download one.

Ring tone scams

These scams might attract you with an offer of a 'FREE' or low cost ring tone. By accepting the offer, you’re actually subscribing to a service that will keep sending you ring tones, and of course, they will charging you a premium rate for them. There are many legitimate companies selling ring tones, but there are also scammers who will try to hide the true cost of taking up their offer.

Missed call scams

Ssometimes your phone received a missed call. You don’t recognise the number so you call it back. Most of the time the call will be perfectly above board, but you may be redirected to a premium rate service which can cost up to $20 ~ $30 per call.

Recorded message scams

The number you’re asked to call back may be a recorded message telling you that you’ve won a prize, and giving you another number to call to ‘claim’ it. But this second number may be a premium rate one. Also, your prize may be nothing more than a ring tone subscription which can also be a scam.

iPhone or Smartphone winning contest
"Send more SMS to win an iPhone" - Sound similar? See if a thousand users send this SMS contest, if each SMS costs $0.30, then the total amount is $300 ($0.30 x 1000), what about a hundred thousand users? or even millions users sending a same SMS? That scammers might earn up to million dollars but given away few prizes just costing few thousand bucks.

How to avoid mobile phone scams?

1. Don’t respond to unknown numbers.
2. Most phone service providers have their own security policies in place to help protect your data; examples include a secret question or a personal PIN for your account. It’s always worth checking what they have and make sure you sign up to use them.
3. Set up a password or pass-code on your phone or tablet and keep it locked when you’re not using it. Refer to your user guide or manual to learn this. 
4. Never allow application or files to be installed from unknown sources particularly on smartphones or tablets (e.g. Android apps outside of Android Market).
5. If you visit a website through your mobile or tablet and the URL looks suspicious, close it down immediately.
6. Never store your personal details like passwords or PIN numbers in texts or emails that are accessible through your phone or tablet. If you want to, install and use the mobile security app.
7. If your phone is stolen, tell your provider straight away, they can blacklist and deactivate it remotely. You should then change any passwords for online accounts you access through your phone as soon as possible.
8. If you sell your phone or tablet or give it away, make sure you do a factory reset to clear all your important data like contact, sms, email account and banking information, you’ll find out how to reset your phone in your user guide. 
9. Set up a secure pin on your voicemail so that only you can access your messages. Call into your voicemail service to do this. Follow your service provider’s guidelines if you're unsure.
10. Many smartphones and tablets now come with the ability to remotely lock and track it if it’s lost or stolen.  There are a number of apps but some handsets themselves are capable of this. Check with your manufacturer’s website to find it.