International Numbers Are Scamming Missoulians and Charging Cellphone Bills Per Minute

Cellphone scams have swarmed the Missoula valley within the last couple of months, but the most recent scam charges the person calling the unknown international number back.

KGVO has been receiving a lot of complaint calls from people regarding cellphone scams across the city. What's most intriguing, Director of Communications Kelsea Maguire with Better Business Bureau said, is that the phone calls are mostly from international numbers:

"The places we've been seeing are from the Caribbean Islands," Maguire said. "Grenada, Antigua, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands. What happens is your phone might only ring once or twice, and often there's no voicemail left, so it hangs up, and you look, and you just have this unknown phone number on your caller ID, so you call it back. When you do end up calling those numbers back, there is a huge international fee on your cellphone bill."

To ensure people do not fall victim to the scam, Maguire advised the following:

"If you get a call from an unknown number, don't call it back without doing any research on it, especially if it's an area code you've never seen before," Maguire said. "If you have no reason to be getting a call from overseas, definitely do not call it back. Screening your calls as well to see if they do leave a message, and not calling back if no voicemail is left is also a good practice. Also, just keep a really good eye on your cellphone bills."

Maguire said charges have been upwards around $9 to $19 per minute.