Better Business Bureau’s advice to avoid telemarketing scams

Our phones have become our lifelines. Scammers know this and call unsuspecting people to get their personal information, making them victims of telemarketing fraud. The Federal Trade Commission estimates that fraudulent telemarketers scam as much as $40 billion a year from

U.S. consumers.

Telemarketing fraud occurs when a scam artist calls a victim, makes a false statement and the misrepresentation causes the victim to give money or personal information to the scammer.

Better Business Bureau offers these tips to avoid telemarketing scams:

■ Never answer your phone if it’s a number you don’t know or trust. If you do answer, hang up once you realize you don’t know the person on the other end. Hang up the phone if you get a recorded phone call, don’t push any buttons.

■ Be wary of offers requiring you to act quickly or the offer will go away. Any legitimate offer will still be available after you have been given time to consider it.

■ Never give your personal information, such as credit card, social security or bank account numbers, to anyone you don’t know or trust.

■ Ask for written material about any offer or charity donation and wait to make a decision until you receive it.

■ Research the company. Ensure you can find it online and it has good reviews. Also, get the name of the person calling you, the company name, telephone number and address. Verify the information checks out before proceeding.

■ Use a credit card if you do pay someone over the phone so you can dispute the charges if it turns out to be a scam.

■ Never make an advance payment for a loan or credit card. It’s illegal for a company to require such a payment.

■ Know prizes are free. You shouldn’t have to pay to receive a prize and you can’t win a contest you didn’t enter. Be wary if you receive a check as an advance on your winnings and are asked to wire a portion of the money back to the sender. After you wire the money, the check may bounce because it’s an elaborate fake.

■ Never respond to an offer you don’t fully understand.

■ Remember, if the offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Be proactive in protecting yourself from telemarketing scams. For instance, sign up for the Do Not Call Registry (www. donotcall.gov) to cut down on telemarketing sales calls. You can also talk to your phone company about call blocking tools it may have and check into apps you can download to your mobile device to block unwanted calls.