By Annie Palmer For Dailymail.com
Published: 17:22 BST, 6 May 2019 | Updated: 18:00 BST, 6 May 2019
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You might want to think twice before returning missed calls from an unknown number.
The Federal Communications Commission has issued a new warning about 'one ring' schemes that are on the rise and are carried out by illegal robocallers.
A telltale sign is that users' phones will ring once and the caller will hang up without leaving a voicemail, tricking the user into calling them back.
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The FCC has issued a warning about 'one ring' schemes that are on the rise and are carried out by robocallers. Scammers trick users into calling back an unknown international number
Scammers may call users and hang up the phone after it rings once, often without leaving a voicemail.
The call may appear to be from the U.S., whether due to a spoofing service, which displays a different number than the one used to call you, or other methods.
Users are often tricked into calling these numbers back, connecting them to an international number.
They then get slapped with hefty interconnect fees.
'If that happens to you, and you do not recognize the number, do not return the call. You may be the target of a "one-ring" phone scam,' the FCC warned last week.
Scammers may use phone numbers that appear to be from the U.S. or a phone spoofer, to mask the number that shows up on your device.
Others that are savvier will use international numbers from regions that use three-digit area codes, such as 649, which is associated with the Turks and Caicos, as well as 809 and 222, which go to the Dominican Republic and Mauritania, respectively, the FCC explained.
The FCC said