Spam calls or phone scams have increased significantly in recent years. The rise in these types of attacks has led to some users no longer picking up the phone to unknown numbers. However, you may find yourself in a dilemma when you are expecting an important call and end up picking it up. What happens if you answer and discover that it is a fraudulent call?
Hiya’s Q3 2023 Global Call Threat Report found 6.55 billion suspected cases of phone spam. This result was obtained by analyzing 39 countries, including Spain. In fact, the Spanish data was one of the most worrying, with a spam rate of 42% of all calls, according to its research.
The short answer to what you should do when you receive a suspected spam or scam call is to hang up. However, if you want to protect yourself, the actions you need to take go beyond that.
While some of these calls are simply intended to sell us something, their objective is usually more worrying. In theory, unconsented advertising calls, commonly known as spam, are no longer permitted in Spain. Therefore, the actors behind them are usually fraudulent.
The first step, of course, is to hang up immediately as soon as you realize it’s a phone scam. But that’s not all it takes. You’ll need to take further steps if you really want to be protected from the problems that come with such a call.
Block the phone number
Even if you don’t give out any personal or banking information and simply pick up the phone and, when you realize it, hang up, you are already giving away information about yourself. When you answer the call, the person on the other end of the line will know that someone is actively using that number.
They may therefore try to contact you later and try their luck with more convincing scams. For this reason, it is advisable to block the number and be careful with future calls, as there will surely be new attempts soon.
Report the situation to the authorities
Ideally, you should not give out any information about yourself. But, let’s be honest, if you have picked up the phone, you may have given out some information that could later be used for other fraudulent actions. For this reason, it is advisable to alert the authorities. This way, if they use your data to commit crimes in your name, the report could be used as proof that it was not you.
In addition, the police may start an investigation to find out what is behind the call. This is important not only for you, but for any potential victims in the future.
Do egosurfing on the Internet
If criminals have your details, they can use them to commit fraud in your name, as we have already mentioned. It is not enough to simply report it to the police. It is also a good idea to search for yourself on the Internet to check that no one is tarnishing your image.
This practice is known as egosurfing. According to INCIBE, this concept is used to refer to any search we do about ourselves on the Internet. Whether it is from Google or any other search engine, such as Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok and other social networks.
What if you have given your bank details?
We tend to be wary of giving our banking information to anyone. But if you have fallen into the trap of a fraudulent phone call, it is possible that they have managed to extract your bank account information from you. In this case, it will not be enough to simply report it to the police, but we will have to act urgently by calling the bank in question.
The best thing to do is to try to stay calm, but act as quickly as possible. Search the Internet or your bank’s app for the customer service number and call. As soon as you hear from a teleoperator, explain the situation and they will tell you what to do. Generally, this will involve changing the password or PIN on the card for a new one, with data that the cybercriminals do not have access to.
