Officials are helping people avoid the latest potential phone scam sweeping the country – and providing a list of what area codes you should avoid answer to prevent yourself from becoming a victim.
The scam has people receiving repeated phone calls, hoping to strike their interest to call back the number and find out what’s going on. Another version has people either receiving a phone call or audio message in which a robo-call is played of someone crying – again, hoping to get the person to call the number back.
The scam, known as the “473 Scam”, gets its name from that being the area code for the county of Grenada and several others islands outside the USA where the calls originate from.
Inc.com provided a list of area codes you shouldn’t answer or respond to calls from to avoid being caught in the scam that could steal your money – as calls to the nations can sometimes be as high as $20 per minute:
- 242 -- Bahamas
- 441 -- Bermuda
- 784 -- St. Vincent and Grenadines
- 246 -- Barbados
- 473 -- Grenada, Carriacou, and Petite Martinique
- 809, 829, and 849 -- Dominican Republic
- 264 -- Anguilla
- 649 -- Turks and Caicos
- 868 -- Trinidad and Tobago
- 268 -- Antigua
- 664 -- Montserrat
- 876 -- Jamaica
- 284 -- British Virgin Islands
- 721 -- Sint Maarten
- 758 -- St. Lucia
- 869 -- St. Kitts and Nevis
- 345 -- Cayman Islands
- 767 -- Dominica
- 684 -- American Samoa
- 671 -- Guam
- 670 -- Northern Mariana Islands
- 787 and 939 -- Puerto Rico
- 340 -- U.S. Virgin Islands
- Canadian area codes:
- Alberta -- 403, 587, and 780
- British Columbia -- 236, 250, 604, and 778
- Manitoba -- 204 and 431
- New Brunswick -- 506
- Newfoundland -- 709 (879 is being added in 2018)
- Northwest Territories -- 867
- Nova Scotia -- 902
- Nunavut -- 867
- Ontario -- 226, 249, 289, 343, 365, 416, 437, 519, 613, 647, 705, 807, and 905
- Quebec -- 418, 438, 450, 514, 579, 581, 819, and 873
- Saskatchewan -- 306 and 639
- Yukon -- 867
- Nationwide -- 600 (and possibly 622, 633, 644, 655, 677, and 688)
- U.S. and Canada Area code -- 900
Courtesy of our news partners at NBCMiami.com.
