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
Local
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
