1. Most phone sales calls are made by legitimate companies promoting legitimate products or services. But where honest businesses look for new customers, so do scammers. Toll fraud is a multi-billion dollar business that involves selling everything from bad or non-existent investments to selling misrepresented products and services. If you have a phone, you are a prospect, becoming a victim is largely up to you.
2. There is no way to positively determine if a sales call is legitimate simply by talking to someone on the phone. No matter what or how many questions you ask, expert scammers have practiced the answers. That is why sales calls must be treated with caution. People or companies unknown to you should be verified before buying or investing. Legitimate callers have nothing to hide.
3. Phone scammers probably know more about you than you think. Depending on where they got your name in the first place, they may know your age and income, health and hobbies, occupation and marital status, education, the house you live in, what magazines you read, and whether you have shopped over the phone. in the past. Even if your name is from the phone book, phone scammers (and women) assume that, like most people, you’d be interested in more income, that you’re receptive to a bargain, that you’re basically sympathetic to the people in needs, and is reluctant to be rude to someone on the phone. As admirable as these features may be, they help make the scammer’s job easier. Scammers also exploit less admirable traits, such as greed.
4. Fraudulent telemarketers have one thing in common: they are skilled liars and experts at verbal ‘fake work’. Your success depends on it. Many are trained to “say whatever it takes” by “boiler room” operators where they work in rows of phone desks making hundreds of repetitive calls, hour after hour. The first words spoken by most toll fraud victims are “the caller sounded so credible…”
5. Toll fraud perpetrators are extremely good at sounding like they represent legitimate businesses. They offer investments, sell subscriptions, provide products for the home and office, promote travel and vacation plans, describe job opportunities, solicit donations, and the list goes on. Never assume that “you’ll know a phone scare when you hear one.” Even if you’ve read stories about the most commonly practiced types of schemes, innovative scammers are constantly announcing new ones.
6. The telemarketing scammers’ motto is, “just give us a few good ‘mooches,'” one of the terms they use to describe their victims. Although most victims are usually smart and prudent, even scammers express amazement at the number of people who “seem to have their checkbooks by the phone.” Unfortunately, some families part with the savings they worked for years to accumulate based on little more than a 15-minute phone conversation, less time than they would spend considering the purchase of an appliance.
7. The person who “initiates” the phone call can be you. It is not uncommon for phone criminals to use direct mail and advertise in reputable publications to encourage prospects to make the initial contact. It’s another way for scammers to mimic the perfectly acceptable marketing practices of legitimate businesses. So just because you’ve written or called to get “additional information” about an investment, product, or service doesn’t mean you should be any less cautious when buying over the phone from someone you don’t know.
8. Victims of a phone scam rarely get their money back, or at best just pennies on the dollar. Despite the efforts of law enforcement and regulatory agencies to provide what help they can to victims, scammers generally do the same thing as other people when they get money – they spend it!
9. Before calling any number back, you can do a quick reverse lookup of the phone number and find out more about the telemarketer than they have about you.

With broadband Internet services and our wireless phones, it’s actually possible to perform a background check with a reverse phone number lookup while the scammers are still on the phone with you.