Recent weeks have seen the public be warned about wangiri calls in Hong Kong, Australia and the United Arab Emirates. Alarming language has been used in each case. The South China Morning Post reports that…
…police have warned Hongkongers to beware of a rampant global “missed call” scam, after receiving about 140 inquiries from people who had questions about international calls from unknown numbers.
News.com.au warned Australians about how much their countrymen have lost in 2018 already.
…the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s deputy chair, Delia Rickard, recommended ignoring calls from country codes you don’t recognise… According to the ACCC’s ScamWatch, Australians have lost more than $48,000 [USD43,000] to premium service scam calls in the past year.
Arabian Business wrote that UAE operator Etisalat has had to take measures to protect customers.
Etisalat has reminded phone users to be vigilant of phone phishing following reports of UAE residents being hit by the ‘Wangiri scam’… “[We have] rolled out several scam awareness campaigns for our customers and we will continue to raise awareness through mainstream media and social media as well,” Etisalat said in a statement.
In each instance different countries are listed amongst the sources for the wangiri calls. This begs the question of whether wangiri is becoming more common because the same gangs are extending their efforts, or if different criminals around the world are just adopting similarly profitable techniques.
