How scammers trick you into answering their call

Are you experiencing an increase in the number of local calls to your home and/or cell phone? You’re not alone. This phenomenon is called “neighbor spoofing”.

Neighbor spoofing is used to trick a person into thinking somebody local, possibly even someone they know, is calling.For phone scams like this to be successful, scammers need people to pick up the phone so they can initiate the conversation. In many instances, it is a random number with the same area code and first three digits as your own phone number or a local business.

Answering one of these spoofed calls will indicate to the robocaller that you have an active phone line. Active phone lines are valuable to phone scammers and will often put you on what is referred to as a “sucker list,” potentially opening your phone line up to more scam calls.

Miguel Segura with the Better Business Bureau says there are some things you can do to avoid these types of calls:

Don’t answer. Avoid answering calls from phone numbers you don’t recognize, even if they appear to be local. If it’s important, the caller will leave a message.

Call blocking apps. There are call blocking apps that may help decrease the number of spam calls. Your phone carrier may also provide a similar service or offer advice.

Report number to FTC. The Federal Trade Commission takes the phone numbers you report and releases them to the public each business day. This helps phone carriers and other partners that are working on call blocking solutions.

For more information watch the clip above or log on to BBB.org.