How not to be one more victim of telephone scams? Know the modus operandi and useful tools to avoid it

“Scam attempt. Notice to the community. They called me by cell phone to describe everything I did, work, what I share on networks and what I did. They had sensitive information about my husband and they named him by name and surname… I had heard of this mode so I told them it was a scam, I hung up and blocked (…) They scare people into sending them money. Careful with this!”, This was the message of Monica Faour on her social networks, one more victim of the phone scams from which, thanks to his precaution, was not a victim.

Years ago, UNASE, a National Directorate specialized in the resolution of kidnapping and extortion casesindicated to the public that this type of fraud attempts were becoming more recurrent, as well as the increase in victims of it.

The Comprehensive Criminal Organic Code (COIP) punishes this type of crime with up to seven years of imprisonment.

According to the unit and other specialists, there is a process that the perpetrators handle to identify your next victim, which is divided into two steps:

1. Search

In the first step, the offender finds out all kinds of information from the citizen with the help of public web portals, at the same time with social networks and the content that you share with your friends or followers. Or even, days before, they contact you pretending to be a public or private institution that needs to confirm your data.

For Karina Astudillo, Ethical Hacker and IT Security Consultantit’s all about common sense and the care we give to what we share.

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For example, he advises that when we receive “bank calls” or other types of “institutions”let us be careful with the specification of information that they request:

It is okay to ask for your name, contact number, or even address, since that information can be found by anyone in public places such as the SRI (Internal Revenue Service)

However, the specialist asks that be alert when more specific data is requestedsuch as the complete number of your credit or debit card, the confirmation code that is behind it, as well as the username or password of the virtual banks, automatically the citizen should be alerted and do not give any type of private information to this call, since it would be the scammer himself pretending to be someone else.

2. Bullying

Major Héctor Javier Franco, UNASE Chief of Operations, shared with Day to day the modus operandi of this phase:

– They send a message alluding to the fact that they urgently need to communicate with the citizen. In it, they identify his online status to proceed to verify that he read the message and take the next step.

– Receive the first ringif you don’t answer, it will call back repeatedly

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– When answering, will directly intimidate with a story that causes fear to the victim, it will also confirm that it has personal information about you or your family.

“If it falls the first time, it is likely to happen again”, says Mayr. Frank. The nationality varies, the perpetrators are usually from Ecuadorians, Colombians and Venezuelans. Generally, they do it with an international accent ‘on purpose’.

How to handle a phone extortion?

Past victims and specialists have shared in some media how to deal with this type of situation. One of the keys is keep calm and don’t get carried away by fearwith this, you will be able to handle the facts with reason and calm, in addition:

– Write down the data that they are offering you in the call, if there is a way, place the call on loudspeaker and with the help of another cell phone, record the call in progress. In this way, later you may notice inconsistencies in the information and confirm that it is a scam.

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– No of payment offers or automatic transactions through web banking and in real time. Excuse yourself that you are not available at the moment (you have a work meeting, you are in class or somewhere unavailable, etc.).

– Call 911 immediately and ask UNASE for assistance, with the data collected, they will be able to solve it in a better way.

Some other users have acted more radically when identifying extortion, automatically blocking the phone number and making known to the corresponding authorities, such as Mónica Faour, the testimony exposed above.

Effective tools and Truecaller

In these cases, also we have technology on our sidea tool used to identify numbers hidden or unknown that call us, their name is Truecaller.

What this App does is ask you for access to your contact base, in it you have the numbers identified by name. So, the more people in the world have Truecaller, the more numbers you can identify

Karina Astudillo, ethical hacker and specialist

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In addition, every time someone who is not in your phonebook calls you, Truecaller will identify who is calling you. This works both for hidden or private numbers and for open calls from other companies that you do not know who they are.

However, the specialist Astudillo insists on be cautious in advance, In addition to the extra tools, it is essential that:

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– Limit personal informationWhat you share on social networks, not only yours, but also those of your relatives.

– Check who sends you requests of friendship or follow-up, identify if they are reliable profiles with the number of followers or friends in common. However, if you don’t know about it, it’s best to avoid it.

– Instead of putting your full name on your social networks, enter a pseudonym, or just your first name without extra information that can make the victimizer reach you faster. (F)