Scam Alert: What You Need to Know About “Can You Hear Me” Scam

If you receive a phone call from someone asking “Can you hear me now?”, you should know it’s not the former Verizon pitchman calling. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the call is a scam designed to get you to agree to falsified charges. In this issue, we’ll talk about how the scam works.

Examining The Scam

BBB officials say that the scam has been “running hot” since the last few days of January. After the “caller” introduces themselves, you’ll be asked if you can hear them clearly. If you answer “yes” you voice is recorded and you’re signed up for a service or product and the scammers will soon demand payment. The entire conversation is designed to get you to say the word “yes”. We put the word “caller” in parenthesis because there’s a good chance the voice on the other end of the line is not a human at all but is instead a robot programmed to sound like a human. The way they’re programmed is pretty slick and can be very effective. For example, if you ask the “caller” to say the words “I am not a robot”, the robot is programmed to respond with a casual laugh and say “I am a real person”.

How to Fight This Scam

While it may be tempting to play around with the robocaller or press a few numbers on your phone’s keypad, any kind of response from you may be used by the scammers’ tracker to find out which telephone numbers are working – resulting in you getting, even more, calls. Instead, here are a few tips:

• If you’ve received such a call, check your bank and credit card statements for unauthorized charges
• Use Caller ID to screen your phone calls and try to refrain from answering numbers that are unfamiliar to you
• If you hear the phrase “Can you hear me?”, simply hang up
• Jot down the number and report it to the BBB scamtracker so that you can help warn others
• Think about joining the Do Not Call Registry so that the number of telemarketing and sales calls to you is reduced

For Answers About How to Deal With Crippling Debt, Call The Oswalt Law Group

If you’re living with crippling debt, there are legitimate ways of getting out. Call us here at The Oswalt Law Group for a free consultation. The first consultation is always free, so call us at (602) 225-2222.