How scammers make money by inflating bills and what to watch out for
Once again, fraudsters have found a way to make money by inflating the bills of unsuspecting mobile phone users in Greece, but also the rest of the world.
More specifically, according to "Ta Nea", in recent months, a large number of mobile phone subscribers of almost all companies in Greece have received missed calls or an SMS from an unknown number abroad. Usually, these missed calls are made during the night hours, when the unsuspecting user is sleeping or has his phone turned off.
As executives of mobile phone companies say, these calls are usually made by an unknown high-cost number from abroad. As soon as the Greek user detects the missed call on his mobile phone, his first move is to call back to see who has called him. This is how he falls into the trap, since these numbers are usually extremely high-cost and a few seconds of calling are enough to charge him from 10 to 25 euros!
Based on the publication, the groups of foreign numbers from which Greek subscribers have received unanswered calls are three and specifically, most calls have been made from the numbers +375602605281, +37127913091 and +3598920111, as well as from other numbers starting with +375 or +371 or +359.
+375 is the international code for Belarus, +371 is the code for Latvia, while +359 is from neighboring Bulgaria. Depending on the geographical location of each of the victims in Greece, those calling back these numbers are charged at a minimum international call fee, a portion of which likely ends up with the scammers making the missed calls.
Companies recommend that subscribers, when receiving calls from such numbers, immediately delete them from their device and not answer the calls.
At the same time, the National Telecommunications and Post Commission (EETT) warns that arbitrary calls to ten-digit numbers in the series 901 XXX XXX and 909 XXX XXX also require attention.
Also, attention is needed for some of the so-called Multimedia Information Services (MIS), which are related to the transmission of information - content through electronic communications networks.
Access to the MSP is possible either through the ten-digit numbers of the format 901 XXX XXX, 909 XXX XXX or through the four-digit – five-digit short codes of the format 14XXX(X), 190XXX – 195XXX and 54XXX. The provision of MSP can also be carried out via the Internet. The charge for the use of these services is higher than the basic services and the billing is carried out by debiting the subscriber's account.
Source: protothema.gr
