Vishing is the act of scammers using malicious calls to gather information or money from their victims. It is one of the most common types of phishing today. Scammers pretend to be calling from reputable companies like MTN, AIRTEL, and Google. Before vishing occurs, the scammers gather as much information as possible so the victim doesn’t doubt their authenticity.

Another definition of vishing by Cisco

Let’s look at some of the places where phone numbers of recipients who face vishing are gathered from

From documents disposed of

Some companies do not have good information management practices. When records have reached their end of life, they usually damp the papers in the dustbin; this makes the records prone to being recycled into paper bags used for packing street foods or anything. Moreover, these records have phone numbers of applicants, service agreements, and a lot more. The scammers gather this information to make random calls to recipients and pretend to offer help like giving jobs to applicants

From social media

Social media has always given us options to save our phone numbers either for business or to allow communication with social media with our connections. Scammers take advantage of this information to carry out vishing

By guessing

Nowadays scammers guess phone numbers. Moreover, it is easy to identify even the owners of the guessed name through services like mobile money

Signs that it is Vishing

The number that is used for vishing is strange

One of the most obvious signs that it is vishing is the number being very strange. In most cases, you don’t even know it or have never seen it

The grammar they are using is broken

Scammers are usually unserious people with little or no education at all but are trying all means to survive. Someone willing to offer you a corporate usually sounds corporate

The person knows your name but cannot pronounce it well

The people in your circle always know the pronunciation of your name and even if it is someone else, they must have discovered how your name is pronounced. Scammers are often in a hurry to be critical about pronunciations and all

They are not sure of what you do

The information gathered by scammers is often not sufficient for them to initiate a fake business conversation. They do ahead and ask for the services you offer before they can make a service request, which is unrealistic

The person makes an unexpected offer. People searching for jobs are usually victims in this scenario.

When a scammer initiates a call, he usually offers you a job offer that you didn’t expect, moreover, you have not applied to the company he is giving you an offer from. I once got a call from someone wanting to give me a job offer at World Vision yet I had never applied in World Vision before

They refer you to someone else

The person they refer you to often has a specialized role. I received a call and was referred to someone who was addressed as an accountant to be able to handle my case

The gender of the person is not familiar with the voice

If they tell you that we are referring you to sister Maria Gorreti, Sister Maria Gorreti’s voice will be for a man and not for a woman

The person vishing asks you to carry out a transaction

Scammers are usually up to transactions. If they are claiming that there was an accidental transaction to your account, they ask you to make a transfer immediately. In most cases, the evidence of these transactions is a false message that has been sent by a phone number and not an automated alert like from a bank, mobile money

They threaten you

Scammers launch threats to force their victims to launch a transaction. If the victim defies, they usually threaten to cut the services off

They repeatedly ask for money

When they are pretending to offer you a service or give you a gift, they repeatedly ask for money which may be used for delivering the service they claim to offer

For vishing to take place, scammers do not need any advanced knowledge, all they need is a phone and a phone number. This makes it a very famous practice people are taking advantage of to make money. Remember, in most cases, wisdom is needed to be able to identify a vishing attempt. Companies should be able to have policies for the disposal of sensitive records; burning and shredding of the records is one of the best ideas for rendering protection of client information

Internet users should endeavor to protect personal information online to prevent scammers from taking advantage of it

Learn more about other types of phishing and get to know more about phishing in general

Types of phishing

How to fight phishing

QR Code phishing attacks

What more might you miss other than vishing

Check out Circumvent Teching’s latest YouTube drama on scam