Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/897139
maltatoday SUNDAY 5 NOVEMBER 2017 News MATTHEW VELLA SO what happens if you return a missed call from Liberia? Or the Comoros, or Be- lize, or Morocco? The answer is simple: you will be scammed out of a lot of cash. It has now become increasingly common to hear of suspicious phone calls from far- off countries, which sees fraudsters dial- ling numbers from places like Liberia and immediately hanging-up. The scam lies in the hope that they will be called back, whereupon the unassum- ing called will then be routed to a premium rate number, overseas, and billed a large sum of cash to listen to a pre-recorded message. The 'One Ring' scam is often re- ferred to as Wangiri, the name by which it is known in Japan – it means 'one and cut'. The scam is not a new one, albeit a sort of evolution on the email scams where the widows of deposed Nigerian ministers seem to be willing to share with you their million-dollar offshore horde. The scam is done with autodialling for maximum spread. However, the dialler hangs up after the first ring, so the number is recorded as a missed call on the prospec- tive victim's phone. If he or she notices the call and assumes that it was a legitimate call, he or she may well dial the 'missed' number in order to find out what the call was about. The scam artists also use phone numbers bought on the dark web, where a healthy trade in illegal goods goes on. This, in fact, confirms the ex- perience of couples at home who receive the scam phone calls within minutes of each other, suggesting that their data has been sold off. According to the website Scam Alert, a variation of this scam is that the scammer might leave a voice message stating that they are official, and there has been an emergency, to which you must respond by calling them back. The latest version involves WhatsApp messages with contact attachments, and you would be charged a hefty fee if you called that contact. The fact-checking website Snopes says that those who call back "find themselves listening to advertisements for all sorts of dodgy services. Some firms try to hook callers into subscribing, say, to high- priced chat-lines or Internet services. Oth- ers dupe callers into providing credit-card numbers. Using caller-identification in re- verse helps to harass more users." A Facecrooks alert also mentions the 268 area code (Antigua), but a number of other country codes have been linked with scams taking advantage of 'pay-per- call' numbers, including Belarus (375), the British Virgin Islands (284), the Domini- can Republic (809), Grenada (473), Latvia (371) and Jamaica (876). Scam trying to get you to call Liberia has a name: Wangiri Elderly couple construction misery: Architect insists remedial action taken MATTHEW COSTA ARCHITECT and developer Philip Mifsud has insisted that he has strictly followed all construction regulations in the addition of ex- tra storeys to an elderly couple's ground floor maisonette. In an article published in the Sunday edi- tion, dated October 22, MaltaToday told the story of Joseph Galea, 71, and his 69-year- old wife, whose home sustained damage due to the building of extra floors on top of their ground floor maisonette. Heavy rain in Sep- tember and October had aggravated the dam- age, with water having seeped through cracks in the ceilings and walls, causing stains, com- ing dangerously close to electrical socket out- lets, and ruining a bedroom door. Mifsud is putting the point forward that all work was done in accordance with the rel- evant legislation, and it was unthinkable for him to do anything contrary to the building rules. In addition, Mifsud had taken remedial ac- tion immediately when he was notified that water had entered Galea's home, including applying sealant to the roof above the prop- erty, and installing a water-drain. The func- tioning of this had not yet been tested, in the absence of heavy rain, however. He reiterated that he had never ignored the homeowner's attempt to reach him, and that in once case Galea had emailed the wrong ad- dress. He also emphasised that the remedial work was not done as a reaction to the newspaper article and that construction work to finish the project was continuing. the call was about.