A phone scam seen around the world has reportedly been targeting Indonesians as of late, potentially sucking up our precious pulsa (phone credit) or racking up our phone bills.
The wangiri scam, which is Japanese for “one [ring] and cut”, involves scammers using auto-dialers to ring random phone numbers. After the first ring, the call disconnects, leaving a missed call on the target’s phone. Those who are curious enough to dial back would then be connected to an expensive premium international line, charging astronomical fees that would use up one’s pulsa in no time.
In Indonesia, recent reports indicate that the scammers call mostly using the +242 country code, which comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as using +261 (Madagascar) and +88 (Taiwan) among others.
Penipuan Wangiri
Wa Ngiri ni ye pic.twitter.com/eFtKvbQd4j— Comote (@hainyooo) April 2, 2018
Waspada wangiri~
https://t.co/Ejq2CBToAt— . (@AbdViking) April 1, 2018
Wangiri from +8821622778781
— ♠︎ (@indrapjg) April 2, 2018
The wangiri scam is neither new nor exclusive to Indonesia. Recently, it has duped victims in Australia, the UK, and New Zealand, but it actually goes further back to 2002 in Japan (hence the Japanese term for the scam), when phone lines in Osaka were jammed on two occasions because of the prevalence of the scam.
Those who did return the call reported being put on hold, listening to business proposals or being offered adult entertainment services as the scammers attempt to keep callers on the phone as long as possible.
The Indonesian government and local telcos have not taken preventative steps against the wangiri scammers. But mobile operators in other victim countries assured that the simplest method to be immune from the wangiri scam is to never return missed calls from unknown overseas numbers.
