Phone scam to watch out for.

I've gotten the call on my cell phone a few times lately. Usually it comes in around midnight. The phone rings one time, and then there's no one there. A quick check of the number that called reveals a 268 area code: Antigua.

I don't know anyone in Antigua, but I was pretty sure that I knew what the game was so I never dialed back.

Now today, I find this story about calls like that:

Missed call from someone you don't know? Phishing scam sees cell phone users charged if they call back numbers they don't recognise.

Seems like it you call back, you get pounded for a $20.00 overseas call charge plus a per-minute rate of $9.00 or more as soon as the call connects. The scammers are using computers to dial numbers by the thousands now, banking on at least a percentage of them calling the number back to see who it was. Don't fall for it. If you don't recognize the number, don't dial it back.

I blocked the first one that called me, but I've been called by two others from the same area code since. They're nothing if nor persistent down there. And this represents a fairly new trend--the apparent targeting of cell phones for "call-back" scams. Obviously the scammers figure that cell phone users are dumber than landline phone users. Wonder why that could be?