By Obar Mark Asuelaa

International calling scams start with a simply transnational phone call that instinctively disconnects before the owner of the phone could receive it. The calls that mainly originate from countries like Burundi (+257), Malawi (+265), Pakistan (+92), Russia (+7), Nigeria (+234), Tunisia (+216), Belarus (+375) often ring for less than three seconds before disconnecting. These missed calls are meant to create an impression that the owner of the phone has just missed an important international, which in response, should be returned as soon as possible. "You will think that you missed an important call from a foreign country! "It must be important!" That's how a lot of people think," explains Lalit Kumar who is the founder of TechWelkin.

On phoning back, the call will either be put on a voicemail or waiting mode as minutes count and credit units are deducted by milliseconds. The scam phone numbers ascribe to higher call charges as they are subscribed under Pay-Per-Call (PPC) services. Unlike Fee-For-Service (FFS) which is a payment model where individual caller incurs the cost of marking calls to particular phone numbers, Pay-Per-Call payment model transfers the cost of calls to designated phone numbers that will return calls. Scammers have been hiring International Premium Rate Numbers (IPRN) from foreign phone companies, which they use to ring random phone numbers across the world.