This Dangerous Phone Scam Is Tricking People With Just Four Simple Words

"A random "can you hear me?" question should be your first red flag that this unsolicited call could be a scam, said Kelly Richmond Pope, a professor of forensic accounting at DePaul University and the author of Fool Me Once: Scams, Stories, and Secrets From the Trillion-Dollar Fraud Industry. A conversation with a random number that starts with "can you hear me?" is suspicious "because it's so outside of the typical conversational cycle," Pope said."

"But before you panic, you should note that the BBB said there have been no reports of monetary losses after these "can you hear me?" calls. The nonprofit suggested that in a worst-case scenario, scammers may use a recording of you saying "yes" to authorize charges on your phone. This is known as a cramming scam, where a bad actor "crams" unauthorized service charges onto your bills once they have your information."

"'You never know how your audio voice of you saying 'yes' can be used, spliced in any kind of call with a bank or call with a credit card company to open a line of credit,' Pope said. But Amy Nofziger, the director of victim support for the AARP Fraud Watch Network, said that the 'can you hear me?' question on its own does not warrant significant panic."

Unsolicited calls that begin with 'can you hear me?' are outside normal conversational patterns and should raise suspicion. Such calls can yield a recorded 'yes' response that could theoretically be spliced into authorization calls to open lines of credit or authorize charges, a technique called cramming. The Better Business Bureau reports no monetary losses tied to these specific calls. AARP data shows no evidence linking a response to 'can you hear me?' with cramming or monetary fraud. Consumers should be more concerned about impostor and gift-card scams, which cause significant losses.

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