A couple of weeks ago I started getting persistent phone calls from an overseas number. The calls repeated in groups of five or so over a roughly 15-minute period before stopping. Then they would resume hours or days later. When I checked the number, I found it was from Ukraine.
When I answered the call, after a pause the line would go dead. If I picked up the call but said nothing, I could hear ambient noise of a TV in the background, but no one said anything on the other end. Knowing the shenanigans scammers are up to in that part of the world, I resisted the temptation to call back.
It was a good thing. The calls may be a twist on an old swindle. “A lot of these calls are designed to get you to call back,†said Charlie Douglas, a spokesman for my VoIP phone provider, Comcast. “Then you get charged an inordinate amount of money for calling the Ukraine.â€
That's because the phone fee is set on the receiving end. It's a golden oldie for swindlers, who pull a similar stunt with charge-per-call 900 numbers.
Usually the enticement to make the foreign call is an e-mail or voice mail message saying that you have an important message waiting: you need to claim an inheritance, a family member is injured - you get the idea.
The twist in my case was that the enticement was to call back to say, “Stop calling!†This is especially true because my phone service would not allow me to block overseas calls myself.
When I called the support line I was told that foreign calls could not be blocked at all. I escalated my call to a supervisor who told me the same thing. However, Mr. Douglas said that overseas numbers can be manually blocked by Comcast, an d the support staff should have known that.
So the advice here is, do not return repeated calls from mysterious foreign numbers. Do make repeat calls to your phone service until you can find someone who will block the calls for you.
