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

And now that they know you might respond in the future, the scammer may continue to contact you and then try to “trip you up” when you’re not as focused on what they’re saying, McGovern said.

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.

She stressed that there has been no evidence from AARP databases tying a response to the question to cramming or monetary fraud. “Nobody in here is saying, ‘I lost $50,000,’ in a supposed ‘can you hear me?’ scam,” she noted.

Instead, Nofziger said that consumers should be more concerned about impostor or gift card scams, which are actually known to result in big monetary losses and emotional devastation for victims. So if a caller keeps you talking beyond that “can you hear me?” question, there is more cause for concern.

“Are they asking you for personal information?” Nofziger said. “Are they asking you for crypto ATM? Are they asking for a prepaid gift card? Well, then it’s 100% a scam.”

Here’s what to do when you get a ‘can you hear me?’ call from an unknown number.