Terrifying reason you should never answer the phone if someone says 'can you hear me?'

An alarming reason you should always hang up as soon as a stranger says “can you hear me?” on the phone has been revealed.

While you may want to know why an unknown number is calling, for fear it could be something important, answering could seriously put your personal details at risk.

Scammers can easily get hold of your phone number and take advantage of your curiosity.

There are some pretty obvious signs that someone is trying to take your money or access private information, but there are also some sneaky tricks that you might not be aware of.

Texts imitating a delivery service are often fishy as they commonly ask for your address or banking details.

Millions of people have become victims of phone scams

First Orion revealed that millions of Americans have fallen victim to phone scammers using AI to access information that allows people to steal money and identities.

One of the most dangerous scams asks a very common and seemingly innocent question using a recorded message.

All it says is: "Can you hear me?"

The simple trick question is threatening because it relies on the victim just saying “yes”, and as the message is recorded, it is highly likely it will be audible as there are no signal issues on the perpetrator's end.

The recording of you saying yes could then be used by scammers to impersonate you, using your voice saying “yes” to make purchases and access your personal information.

Matthew Shirley, director of Offensive Cybersecurity Operations at Fortalice, said: "This phone scam is particularly frightening [because] they simply rely on the human behaviour of answering a quick question.”

There are nifty ways to prevent phone scams

As AI continues to develop rapidly and human voices are becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish from computer-generated ones, the Federal Trade Commission has listed four ways to avoid falling victim to phone scams.

If you are ever asked to “unsubscribe” over the phone, never click on the number or link to do so, as it is a way for scammers to see that your number works and you will answer their questions.

Call blocking through an app is a great way to stop unwanted calls before they even ring you. There is a list of the best ones to use on ctia.org.

Do not, under any circumstance, give information to businesses you have never heard of, even if they seem to know things about you as it is likely a trap to find out more information.

Register your phone numbers at the National Do Not Call Registry as it prevents unwanted sales calls from companies that follow the law. However, it doesn’t block calls and won’t stop calls from scammers.

Featured image credit: Tim Robberts / Getty Images