Thousands of Nigerians have in recent weeks been receiving missed calls from foreign numbers, this is a old scam that has been reloaded. The scam is called Wangiri.
Unknown to many, the one-ring phone calls are part of an elaborate phone scam syndicate meant to harvest airtime from unsuspecting users.
This is how it works. When you call back that missed call from a foreign number, it will drain away your airtime. The scammers have a way of deducting a lot of airtime by highly billing people who call them back.
The scam has in the past been reported in other countries, with Irish Times newspaper at one time publishing a piece on what happens when one calls back a Liberian scam number.
In that newspaper's experiment, the call was received and a recorded female voice .
The billing of that call was exorbitant and the reporter advised users not to call back those foreign numbers.
"In less than one minute, my over N2500 bumper airtime had been deducted, blogger; Lukmon Fasasi, who fall victim of the scam posted on his instagram page.
Other numbers that Nigerians have been receiving missed calls bear a Switzerland country code (+41), India (+91) and Syria (+963), Serbia (+381), Madagascar (+261).
Examples of numbers in use :
+381 60 7988015
+381 60 7915440
+261 32 45 166 23
According to Irish Times; "The scam, commonly known as Wangiri fraud, sees scammers use phone numbers bought on the dark web (where criminals trade in illegal goods and services) to dial phone users in other countries and then immediately disconnect the calls to them. The aim of the scam is to encourage those who see a missed call on their phone to ring the number, after which they will be ripped off."
If you see any missed calls from those numbers, do not call back as your airtime will pay for it dearly.
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