What are Yuma County Area Codes?
Area codes are defined as the three-figure prefixes that begin every North American telephone number. Area codes identify the Numbering Plan Areas (NPAs) designated under the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). Each part of the North American region has at least one area code, which identifies the call’s originating location. Individuals can conduct area code lookups using free reverse phone lookup services when they receive calls from unknown area codes.
Two area codes serve Yuma County; they include:
Area Code 520
Area code 520 was formed on March 19, 1995, in a split from area code 602, which used to be the sole area code for the whole of Arizona since the introduction of area codes in 1947. Area code 520 essentially covers Southern Arizona. Some of the cities it serves include Flagstaff, Yuma, Phoenix, and Tucson.
Area Code 928
Area code 928 became active on June 23, 2001, after it was split from area code 520, particularly because of the massive population growth in Tucson, Yuma and Flagstaff. Area code 928 covers the northern, eastern, and western portions of Arizona. Some of the areas it covers include Beaver Dam, Wickenburg, the Grand Canyon, Sedona, Flagstaff, Holbrook, Lake Havasu City, Littlefield, Kingman, Prescott, and Winslow.
What Are the Best Cell Phone Plans in Yuma County?
Yuma County is home to the four major phone carrier networks in the U.S. These include T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T. T-Mobile has the best coverage with a relative score of 86% compared to other phone network providers in Yuma. Verizon, with 80% has the second-best coverage, followed by Sprint and AT&T with 74% coverage. Generally, harsh weather conditions may adversely affect their network quality regardless of the quality of these phone carrier networks.
Judging from the National Center of Health Statistics survey released in 2018, it is evident that residents (adults and minors in Arizona) are more inclined to using wireless telephones over landlines. Hence, landlines are gradually becoming outdated. The telephone status survey shows that 64.9% of the Arizona adult population only used wireless telephones, while 3.3% of Arizona adults exclusively used landlines as their preferred telephony service. By contrast, 75.7% of minors in Arizona used only wireless telephone services, while only 1.2% of minors used landlines as their preferred telephony service option. The telephone survey among the minors shows a greater disparity in the use of wireless telephones over landlines.
The use of VoIP in Yuma County has significantly grown over the past few years. VoIP is the acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol. It uses active internet connections to place and receive phone calls and transmit other multimedia data from the senders to the recipients. Residents and businesses in Yuma County mostly use VoIP due to its flexibility and affordability, despite the innovative features it offers. It is more cost-effective than traditional telephone services and supports long distances at cheap rates. VoIP also guarantees the scalability of businesses. It also provides several innovative features such as name dialing, anonymous calling, call routing, conference calling, automated line attendants, advanced call management, call analytics, and call rejection.
What Are Yuma County Phone Scams?
Yuma phone scams are unlawful ploys that scammers carry out over the phone. Scammers usually take advantage of trending events in the county to develop fraudulent schemes targeted at exploiting both old and young adults. With these fraudulent schemes, scammers defraud residents of their hard-earned money. They also illicitly obtain their personal information for identity theft. In these cases, the identity theft scammers will request personal information like social security numbers, mothers' maiden names, credit card numbers, passwords, etc. Scammers have also advanced to using telephony services for Caller ID spoofing when impersonating legitimate entities, such as businesses and government agencies. The government agencies scammers mostly impersonate are the IRS, Social Security Administration, law enforcement agencies, health departments, and financial institutions.
The Federal Communications Commission helps provide further information on illegal Caller ID spoofing and educates people on how to avoid phone scams by enabling call blocking on their cell phones. Residents can also use good reverse phone number lookup services to answer questions like “who called me?” and “who is this number registered to?”.
Prevalent Yuma County phone scams include:
What Are Yuma County Jury Duty Scams?
A jury duty scam occurs when a scammer poses as an officer from the Yuma County courthouse and calls a resident, claiming that they failed to report for jury duty. The scammer adds that a warrant has been issued for their arrest, but offers to clear the warrant if the recipient accepts to make certain payment. They threaten immediate arrest if the requested money is not sent to them. In a bid to carry out their scheme without any trace, they mandate that the payment is made via wire transfer, by loading a prepaid card, or other unconventional means. In addition to this, scammers use real names of local officers and judges in the scam to make their schemes appear legitimate. Asides from this, they also conceal their Caller IDs and spoof the Caller IDs of the entities they intend to impersonate. Therefore, it is important that residents do not wholly trust the call information on their Caller ID displays. However, individuals can use good reverse phone lookup services to uncover the identities of the scammers and spot spoofed Caller IDs.
Persons that receive such calls should not respond to the scammer’s demands by making any payments or giving their financial information to them. Note that law enforcement agencies in the county do not contact residents to threaten them with arrests and also do not request any form of payment.
What Are Yuma County Coronavirus Stimulus Payment Scams?
Coronavirus Stimulus Payment scammers attempt to use stimulus payments to try to defraud residents. These scams usually appear in two forms. In one variant, the scammers attempt to get their targets to pay specific fees to get their stimulus payment. In another variant, the scammers try to persuade their targets to share their bank accounts, Social Security numbers, or government benefits debit card account numbers. If you must submit any information to the IRS, only make your submission to the verified IRS official website. Good reverse phone lookup tools are useful in identifying callers. Use these services to conduct phone number lookup free. Note that the IRS and other legitimate agencies never contact residents over the phone, text message, email, or social media with information about their stimulus payments. Also, the department will never request your Social Security number, bank account, or government benefits debit card account number.
What Are Yuma County Grandparent Scams?
Impostors call elderly residents pretending to be their grandchildren or children. The impostors claim to be out of town and in some sort of trouble or emergency situation that requires immediate action. They may claim to have been involved in a car accident, locked up in jail, or need to urgently pay certain fees. They usually request that the money is wired to them via unconventional means, pleading to keep the call secret because they are ashamed of the situation. Residents are encouraged to confirm such stories before taking any steps. They should also never give out any sensitive personal and financial information nor make payments. Conducting a suspicious phone number lookup to find out who called can help save you from falling victim to a scam.
What Are Yuma County Utility Giving Scams?
In these scams, scammers call, claiming to be from utility companies you are familiar with. They play on victims' emotions, telling them to pay unpaid bills; otherwise, their service will be cut off service. Typically, the scammers demand that the payments are made via wire transfer or prepaid cards. Residents may conduct reverse number lookups to find out the true identities of the callers. If you receive such calls, hang up and immediately contact the utility company you use to verify the authenticity of the call. Make sure not to make any payment, even if you actually have unpaid bills, until you are sure that the call is genuine.
What Are Yuma County Robocalls and Spam Calls?
Pre-recorded calls sent with autodialers programmed to deliver messages to many people within a short time are called robocalls. Robocalls were originally designed to be solely informational. However, due to robocalls’ affordability, wide reach, and the anonymity that the calls allow, scammers have begun to use them to perpetrate scams. Such robocalls are illegal and fall in the category of spam calls. Spam calls are unsolicited calls sent in bulk to several persons to advertise bogus offers and steal residents' personal information. Some robocalls also unlawfully include prompts for recipients to speak with live agents or to opt out of the call. In most cases, such robocalls have fraudulent aims to spot active numbers and target them with scams.
In 1991, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to regulate the use of robocalls. Pursuant to this law, only informational robocalls can be sent to residents. Also, prior consent has become mandatory before robocalls are sent to anyone. The only types of robocalls that may be sent without prior consent include:
- Robocalls for informational purposes
- Robocalls for debt collection
- Robocalls sent by political parties, legitimate charitable organizations, political parties, and legitimate health institutions
The following steps help reduce unsolicited robocalls:
- Utilize reverse phone look up service to identify robocalls and block them using call-blocking tools on your cell phone. On the other hand, if you answer a robocall mistakenly, terminate the call immediately and do not follow any prompts given during the call.
- Report unlawful robocalls to the FTC by filing a complaint with the online complaint assistant platform or calling 1-888-382-1222 to report.
- Reach out to your phone network service providers for call blocking options to stop receiving robocalls.
- Register your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry to reduce robocalls and other unsolicited calls. 31 days after registration, you can report any robocalls that you receive on your registered phone numbers.
How to Spot and Report Yuma County Phone Scams?
Phone scams are quite prevalent in every part of Yuma County. Hence, it is necessary for residents to stay vigilant and up-to-date on the trending scams in the county. Residents must also know how to spot these scams. While phone number search services help identify scammers, residents must also look out for these red flags when they receive calls bearing any phone number, including phone numbers that they are familiar with. Here are some scam techniques that are common to scammers:
- The caller uses fear and pressure tactics to get the victim to act immediately. They may also use threats of legal actions, arrest, deportation, license revocation, and other grievous consequences.
- The caller actively tries to dissuade the recipient from verifying the information given during the call and tells them to keep the call a secret.
- The caller requests payment before a supposed reward or prize is given.
- The caller demands that the recipient only makes payment with cash, gift cards, prepaid cards, bitcoins, or wire transfers.
- The caller uses highly emotional appeals that are unverifiable.
- The caller advertises get-rich-quick or once-in-a-lifetime business or investment opportunities that sound too good to be true.
- The caller offers to help retrieve money that was lost money to scams for a fee.
Yuma County residents can report phone scams to these government agencies:
Yuma County Sheriff Office - Residents can file scam complaints to the department by calling (928) 783-4427. The office also releases regular scam alerts.
Office of the Arizona Attorney General Consumer Protection Division - Residents can file complaints to the department to report all types of scams.
Federal Communications Commission - Report illegal Caller ID spoofing, illegal robocalls, and other phone scams to the FCC by filling out the online complaint form.
Federal Trade Commission - Report identity theft, illegal Caller ID spoofing, illegal robocalls, unwanted telemarketing, texts, or spam calls, and other scams, using the FTC’s online consumer complaint assistant.