The spam calls are now a daily reality, which affects more and more people. These are phone calls not requestedoften made by automated call centers or telemarketing operators to promote services, products or, in some cases, to attempt real scams. The diffusion of spam calls is so widespread that, in all likelihood, you too have received at least one in the last six months. However, not everyone is clear about How to recognize spam calls and what happens if you answer. Generally speaking, we can say that recognizing these calls is simple because, in many cases, they could be marked as such by the spam filter of your smartphone and, if you try to answer, you usually interface with an automated voice or a human operator who offers amazing “deals”. Speaking of answering this type of calls, if for some reason you decide to do so (perhaps because the nature of the call was not clear), it is better hang up immediately And don’t talk to the spammer.
What are spam calls?
Spam calls are unwanted phone calls which, in most cases, have advertising or fraudulent purposes. The term “spam”, in fact, refers to any form of unwanted and mass communicationwhether it’s emails, text messages, or, indeed, phone calls. While not all spam calls are scams, they remain a form of aggressive marketingoften carried out without the consent of the recipient who, despite having expressed his/her wish not to receive promotional calls by registering in the Public Opposition Register, may continue to receive similar calls.
When spam calls are not made for advertising purposes, they can also be defined as scam phone callsas behind these lies a real scam (the term “scam” can be translated as “fraud” in Italian). This is usually perpetrated with techniques of social engineering (or social engineering), similar to those used with phishing. It is no coincidence that when phishing is perpetrated with spam phone calls, it is called vishing or voice phishing.
How to recognize spam numbers
Recognizing Spam Numbers It is usually quite simple and can be done in several ways. Many users, for example, have activated the anti-spam filter on their smartphone or have installed third-party apps that allow them to recognize unwanted numbers. When you receive a phone call from a spammer, the anti-spam filter that is active on your device recognizes it as such (having compared the number with those in its database) and reports this by showing messages like Potential spammer, Suspected spamand the like.
If you do not have any such filters active on your device, you can protect yourself from spam by simply analyzing the numbers used. A possible alarm bell is given by the fact that the call comes from a foreign number not saved in address book. In this case, it is likely that you are dealing with a scam call, as the scam in Portugal and the scam in the Netherlands demonstrate very well.
If the caller number is obscured – so the only thing you can see is Unknown or Private number – it may be that in this case too the call comes from a spammer.
Sometimes spam calls may come from numbers not saved in the address book that have the Italian prefix +39 (0039). In this case, if when answering the call you interface with a recorded voiceit is likely a spammer or, even worse, a scammer, especially if the voice in question talks to us about telephone or energy offers or proposes investments of some kind (usually in the stock market).
What Happens If You Reply to Spam
Now, let’s get to the question of questions: what happens if you answer a spam call? The answer is “nothing happens” provided that hang up immediately after understanding the nature of the call (for example after listening to a recorded voice or after a human user has made strange requests, perhaps questions about our personal life). It is very important to avoid speaking, because if it is a rather clever spammer, he could not only understand that our number is real but he could also record our voice and manipulate it or, even worse, clone it with artificial intelligence and use it without our knowledge.
