Phone Scam

Beware of "missed call" mobile phone scam

By Tan Yi Hui - Sept 22, 2006
AsiaOne

The next time you receive a "missed call" alert from a China number starting with +86 on your mobile phone, think twice before rushing to return it - unless you know the caller.

Or you may literally play into the hands of a racket, believed to be operating out of China. And end up having to pay a very high charge, as the call is redirected to a premium rate telephone service.

On returning the number, the caller is then told he has won a prize and stands to win a higher chance by calling a second number. If the caller falls for this, he will be charged a premium rate for the second call too.

The victim ends up facing a hefty phone bill for the calls.

For example, callers from Australia who have been dubed were charged A$2.97 a minute for returned calls.

Some mobile phone users told AsiaOne that they had recently received such "missed call" alerts from a number in China (+86). They did not fall for it because they said they were aware of this scam.

When contacted, SingTel, Starhub and M1 said that they had alerted their customers to such scams and advised them to ignore the "missed call" alert.

But IDA said it had not received any complaints from members of the public falling prey to this scam.

Responding to queries from AsiaOne, an IDA spokesperson said: "Since this involves an overseas number, which is obviously a roaming number, it is difficult for us to track, and is out of our jurisdiction". IDA advises users to be "prudent" when responding to such calls.

Source : Digital @ AsiaOne

I have been receiving overseas call from +86 number as well, they call at weird times (like 3am) and always hang up whenever I picked up the call. I never called back (poor student), now I know that it's a scam, I will never call back. Guess that this doesn't only affect Singaporeans but affects Malaysians as well. So be careful people. I wonder why there has not been any warning from Malaysian telco company like Maxis, Digi or Celcom.