The Latest Mobile Phone Cons

Mobile phone scams are on the rise and even though technology in this area evolves quickly scammers are constantly coming up with new ways to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. It was recently revealed that mobile phone scams cost the average consumer five times more than PC scams. With this in mind it has become useful to know what methods tech savvy fraudsters use to separate you from your hard earned cash.

The M-Scam

One of the most common scams starts with a text message congratulating you for winning a holiday or some other prize it gives you instructions on how to collect your prize. All you have to do is call a number which usually begins with 0906. When you call the number you are actually being charged a premium rate which goes straight to the scammers. Unknowingly you hold one for several minutes listening to a long message and never receive your prize. This is a widely used method of con artistry and millions of these messages are sent everyday.

The Missed Call

As the name suggest this method starts with a missed call which the victim calls back and is re-directed to a premium rate number, which takes you through some sort of message highlighting that you have successfully won a prize. You then proceed to hold on for a few minutes and receive a hefty bill at the end of the month from your network provider.

The Reverse Text Message

In this case you may be looking online for some ringtones or wallpapers for your phone you come across a site sign up for a subscription. You are then continuously bombarded with text messages which are charged at anything up to £2.00 a message. There are legitimate services that do not charge extortionate amounts, but you do have to be careful who you use.

The #90 trick

It begins with a company calling you claiming to be a telephone engineer. They go on to instruct you to press #90 or #09 on your phone this then gives them the ability to access your SIM card so they can bill calls to your mobile phone.

Mobile phone scams are literally making criminals millions. In a recent case three men were sentence to 5 years in prison because they set up a company called Pixonyx Ltd, which supplied phone lines for costly international calls. They then collected customer's identities and credit card details and set up hundreds of O2 mobile contracts and used the mobile phone lines to call the premium rate numbers they had set up through Pixonyx Ltd. Once their profits started to fall they then sold the handsets. In just 4 month O2 reported losses of over £2 million from the scam. The three men were finally caught when the calls were traced; they were later found guilty of conspiracy to defraud O2 and given 5 years each in prison.

As technology advances scammers will always find new ways to steal money in a variety of inventive ways always be aware and tell your friends and family about these methods.