9 Ways to Avoid Vishing Attacks [+3 Spam Blocking Apps]

Vishing, or voice phishing, is a growing threat that everyone needs to be aware of. Vishing attacks involve criminals using phone calls to manipulate victims into giving up sensitive information or money. According to research from First Orion, an astounding 29.2 billion scam calls were made to Americans in 2021 alone.

With vishing on the rise, it‘s crucial that individuals know how to protect themselves. In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll explain what vishing is, provide 9 actionable tips to avoid falling victim, and suggest 3 powerful apps to block spam calls.

What is Vishing?

Vishing stands for "voice phishing." It refers to fraudulent phone calls where criminals pose as representatives from legitimate organizations to gain your trust. Their goal is to trick you into giving up personal details that can then be used for identity theft or financial fraud.

Some common vishing tactics include:

Pretending to be from your bank and claiming there was suspicious activity on your account. They may ask you to "confirm" account numbers, PINs or other info.
Acting as the IRS and threatening you with penalties or legal action if you don‘t pay supposed back taxes or fines.
Claiming to be tech support for your phone or computer and requesting remote access to provide "support."
Masquerading as a utility company threatening to disconnect your service if you don‘t pay immediately.
Selling fraudulent products, services or investments while pressuring you to act quickly.

Once they have your sensitive data, scammers can drain your accounts, open credit cards in your name or sell your information on the dark web. They may also record or manipulate your voice to commit identity theft down the road.

How Vishing Works

Vishing relies on two key strategies – impersonation and urgency.

The criminals impersonate trusted organizations, often using spoofing technology to create convincing caller IDs. Spoofing allows scammers to make it seem like the call is coming from your bank, the Social Security Administration or another entity you rely on.

By posing as an authority, they create a sense of trust to get your guard down. Then the scam artists introduce urgency to rush you into providing personal details before you detect the fraud. They may say your account was compromised, your benefits are getting canceled or some other time-sensitive threat.

This combination results in regular folks getting duped into giving up info they‘d normally keep private.

Below is an overview of how a typical vishing scam unfolds:

vishing steps

The criminal hides their identity. They use internet phone services and spoofing apps to create a fake caller ID that matches a trusted source.
The scammer contacts you. Using autodialing technology, they call thousands of numbers per hour until someone picks up.
They build rapport and trust. The fraudsters pose as reps from your bank, tech support or another entity you rely on. Their acting is convincing.
They introduce urgency and high stakes. Suddenly there‘s a problem – your account is compromised, benefits being canceled, computer infected, etc.
They request your personal info. To resolve the supposed issue, they say they need you to verify sensitive account details and data.
You provide private info unwittingly. Believing the call is legitimate and urgent, victims reveal info like passwords, SSNs and bank accounts.
The criminals cash in on your details. They drain your accounts, open new cards in your name or sell your info on the black market.

By understanding these social engineering and impersonation tactics, you‘ll be better equipped to detect and outsmart vishing scams.

9 Ways to Avoid Vishing Attacks

While staying vigilant is the best defense, here are 9 specific techniques for protecting yourself from vishing fraud and phone scams:

1. Never Give Information to Unsolicited Callers

A core vishing strategy relies on scammers posing as banks, tech companies or government agencies to seem credible. No legitimate organization will call and ask you to verify personal or financial details. Any unsolicited call requesting your private info should be assumed fraudulent.

Hang up immediately if a random caller asks you to:

Confirm your social security number
Verify bank account or credit card numbers
Provide passwords or PINs
Allow remote access to your devices
Pay bills over the phone using gift cards or money transfers

Err on the side of caution and avoid falling for phony emergencies or time-sensitive threats. No bank or government agency will demand instant payment or account access over the phone.

2. Ask Questions and Verify Claims

Don‘t be afraid to press callers for more details to uncover any deceit. You can ask questions like:

"What branch or office is calling?"
"What are the reference numbers regarding this issue?"
"Can I have your agent ID number?"

Real representatives will be able to easily provide verifying info. Scammers often get flustered or defensive if you start asking lots of questions.

After ending the call, look up the company‘s phone number independently and call back to confirm if there is any real issue. Never use contact info provided by the caller – those numbers are often tied back to the scammers.

3. Listen for Strange Background Noises

Vishing operations often originate overseas in large call center-like environments. Listen closely to the background of a call.

If you hear a bustling call center, lots of voices or sounds that don‘t match where the caller claims to be (like street noise during an IRS call), it‘s likely a scam. Don‘t offer any personal or financial data.

4. Beware Calls from Your Own Number

A common vishing tactic is to spoof a call to make it appear like it‘s from your area code or even your own phone number.

Seeing your personal number appear on caller ID tricks many folks into answering and trusting the call. But it‘s just a scam technique that fraudsters leverage using VoIP apps and services.

Remember – criminals can easily spoof incoming numbers. So always be vigilant with unsolicited calls regardless of the caller ID details.

5. Set Up Custom Voicemail Greetings

On many smartphones, you can set up custom voicemail greetings for contacts in your address book. Create unique greetings only for those close family and friends that you talk to regularly.

Then enable extended voicemail options like:

Asking callers to record their names
Requesting a verbal PIN or security code
Instructing them to call back from a number you recognize

For all other unknown callers, use a standard voicemail message without any custom challenges or personal details.

This filters potential vishing attacks and prevents fraudsters from gathering audio of your voice for deep fakes.

6. Just Hang Up the Phone

If a call seems suspicious or you get an odd vibe, just hang up. Don‘t offer explanations or reasons to random callers. The longer you engage, the more data they gather to refine their social engineering tactics.

If the caller claims there‘s some urgent issue or problem, let them know you‘ll call the organization directly using official channels to address it. Then immediately hang up and call the legitimate published numbers.

While this won‘t stop illegal and overseas scammers, signing up for the FTC‘s National Do Not Call Registry helps reduce calls from legitimate telemarketers and domestic operations.

You can add landlines and mobile numbers to the registry for free at donotcall.gov.

After 31 days, all companies conducting sales calls are required by law to remove you from their lists or face penalties. This helps reduce at least some unwanted calls.

Be cautious about posting your phone number on social media accounts, online forums, mailing lists and other public places. Scammers scrape websites and public data sources to build vishing target lists.

Also avoid entering your number on sites and pop-up ads offering free gifts or prizes. Often these are just fronts for gathering data later used for phishing campaigns.

The less your number is out there, the lower your odds of getting bombarded by vishing calls.

9. Use Call Blocking and Screening Tools

Powerful call protection apps provide an added shield against phone spam and robocalls. They maintain massive databases of known scam numbers so incoming calls can be automatically blocked.

Top call blocking options also allow you to:

Screen unknown callers to filter out likely scams
View identified scam risks before answering
Report and prevent number spoofing
Blacklist specific numbers permanently

We‘ll highlight the best call blocking apps later in this guide. Combined with the other tips, they significantly cut down on potential vishing scam exposure.

Now that we‘ve covered techniques to detect and stop vishing attacks directly, let‘s discuss several powerful apps that provide an extra layer of spam call blocking protection.

3 Best Apps to Block Vishing & Spam Calls

1. RoboKiller

RoboKiller is one of the most robust options for automatically blocking vishing attempts and other spam calls.

It leverages huge databases of known scam numbers that are continually updated. All suspected scam and spam calls get forwarded to a proprietary answering bot that wastes the scammers‘ time and frustrates their operations.

Some key features that help stop vishing include:

Robocall blocking – Uses global databases to block over 1 billion known spam numbers.
Custom blacklists – Manually block specific unwanted numbers forever.
Neighborhood watch – Crowdsources bad numbers reported by other users.
Spoof card – Gives you a virtual second number to protect your real phone number.
Call screening – Answers unknown calls with custom challenges to weed out scammers.
Revenge on spammers – Annoys scammers and waste their time with answering bot trolling.

RoboKiller works on both iPhones and Android phones. And it integrates with over 150 carriers to provide network-level blocking.

The app costs $3.99 per month, but you can try it free for 7 days first to ensure it blocks the unwanted calls you receive.

2. Nomorobo

Nomorobo is another highly capable spam blocking solution recognized by the FTC and FCC for detecting vishing attempts.

It identifies and blocks both robocalls and live scammer calls using an always-updating directory of verified spam numbers.

Some core features of Nomorobo include:

Robocall blocking – Over 1.6 million robocall scams blocked each day.
Smart blocking – Dynamic call analysis to catch spoofed numbers.
Whitelist – Ensure important calls get through while blocking spam.
Allow list – Safely permit numbers not yet identified as spam.
Blocked call alerts – Get notifications when robocalls are stopped.
Fully automated – Works instantly without any settings or maintenance.

The service integrates at the carrier level to block calls before they ever reach you. And it works across mobile and landlines alike.

Monthly plans start at $1.99 per month. But you can try it free for the first 30 days to confirm it‘s stopping the spam calls you want blocked.

3. Truecaller

Truecaller is the world‘s most widely used caller identification and spam blocker app. It offers robust protection against vishing leveraging a massive global community.

Some notable features include:

Community-based spam detection – 1.9 billion reported spam numbers and growing.
Automatic spam blocking – Uses continually updated directory of bad numbers to block.
Smart profile lookup – Identifies unknown callers with contextual data and alerts.
Spam reporting – Easy reporting of fraudulent numbers to protect others.
Number search – Reverse phone lookup lets you research any suspect numbers.
Block lists – Prevents specific unwanted contacts from calling or texting.
Call reason identification – Uses AI to predict why an unknown caller is contacting you.

Truecaller is free for basic spam blocking features. Premium paid plans starting at $3.99 per month provide idenitification for all unknown callers, advanced spam blocking, and priority support.

Which App Should You Choose?

All three of the apps above offer effective ways to stop vishing scams and block illegal robocalls.

Truecaller may be the best option if you‘re looking for a free spam blocker for basic protection. It leverages vast community data to identify and block many fraudulent calls.

For real-time call screening and more advanced blocking capabilities, RoboKiller and Nomorobo both deliver. Their premium features give you more custom controls to filter out specific unwanted callers forever.

Ultimately, combining techniques like never providing info to unsolicited callers with these intelligent call blocking apps gives you a robust multi-layer defense against vishing.

Conclusion

Vishing scams can seem scary and unavoidable. But with the right precautions, individuals can significantly reduce their exposure and fraud risk.

Remember these core practices to deny scammers the access they want:

Never verify personal or financial details with unsolicited callers.
Confirm claims by calling organizations back using legitimate contact info.
Listen for odd background noises and other red flags.
Hang up immediately if a call raises suspicions.
Use custom voicemail greetings to further screen unknown calls.
Sign up for the National Do Not Call List.
Rely on call blocking and screening apps for an extra layer of protection.

Staying vigilant while leveraging common sense precautions allows you to use your phone safely and avoid falling victim to predatory vishing fraudsters. Share these tips with family and friends to spread awareness on defeating these phone scams.