wangiri scam

We are all now so familiar with the Nigerian prince scam that we instantly delete email requests for us to set up bank accounts in Africa and receive funds from a foreign land. Now our phones are the conduit for scamming activities.

 In the wangiri scam the victim sees that someone has tried to call them from abroad, usually from Latvia, Morocco, Cuba and Africa. The call is cut short prompting the curious recipient to call back, at which point they are connected to a premium phone line and can incur heavy charges, with the scammer attempting to keep them on the line as long as possible in order to increase the cost. A good part of that is returned to the scammer by the phone carriage service in accordance with the fee structure between service providers for connecting calls.

 The name wangiri is a Japanese word meaning literally ‘one (ring) and cut’.