CHECK THAT AREA CODE

KNOW BEFORE YOU CALL BACK - Cellphone charges... and landline charges, too, for that matter... are expensive enough when you're calling overseas, but they come as a real shock when you find them on your bill and didn't know you'd called anyone there.

Your cellphone rings once. You go to answer it, but it doesn't ring again. So you check to see who phoned, and the caller ID announces something official... a hospital, a lawyer's office, a government agency... the sort of call that you'd expect to answer. The number dialed has an area code that appears to be from the States... 809, 284 or 876. Beware, these are overseas calls where the called can earn a fee, as in a premium rate line. 809 is the Dominican Republic, 284 is the British Virgin Islands, and 876 is Jamaica. Scammers understand that most people will dial back to find out who called and why. You wind up on hold for several minutes, and next months phone bill looks like last week's grocery bill. It's gotten so bad that some scammers have worked out ways to obtain a local US number, which then call forwards to some foreign land where the premium rate call clicks in, so even if you think you're phoning, say, Florida, you're actually winding up with a sex line in Vanuatu.

It's a variation on the old text message fraud, "You won a prize." Except this time, all you did was return a call.

How to protect yourself? Obviously, don't return calls to numbers you don't recognize. If it is important, they'll phone back right away, or at the very least, leave voice mail.

If you fall for the scam, immediately contact your service provider.