New Hanover County Reverse Phone Lookup

What are New Hanover County Area Codes?

An area code is a three-digit number that identifies one of the telephone areas into which the United States is divided. It precedes the local telephone number when dialing calls between areas. An area code is useful in identifying the origin and destination of a phone call. You can find the area code of a region in the United States by using area code lookup tools online.

There is currently one area code serving New Hanover County – Area codes 910.

Area Code 910

Area code 910 covers approximately 7,084,000 unique phone numbers and 987,089 individuals near the cities of Jacksonville, Wilmington, and Fayetteville. It is the only area code serving those areas. Area code 910 was created from area code 919. It was split in 1997 to create area code 336. Area code 910 was first used on November 14, 1993. It is also used by Lumberton, Laurinburg, Hope Mills, Murraysville, and Leland Cities.

What are the Best Cell Phone Plans in New Hanover County?

Cellular phone plans from wireless carriers are in huge demand from residents of New Hanover County in recent years. The adoption of wireless telephony has grown with an increasing population as evidenced in a 2018 survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. According to the survey, 57.3% of North Carolina residents above the age of 18 used wireless-only telephony, while 4.5% used landline-only telephony service. Among persons below the age of 18, 69.0% used wireless-only telephony service, while only 2.6% used landline telephony exclusively.

There are several factors to consider while comparing service providers and specific plans. You need to consider the number of individuals or separate mobile devices in your home. You may also consider non-voice communication features, such as data access and texting. However, the most important feature to consider is the coverage for any wireless carrier you sign up with. In the county seat of Wilmington, T-Mobile has the best coverage with a relative score of 90% compared to the other Major Network Operators (MNOs). Verizon's coverage score is rated 88%, AT&T's at 82%, while Sprint has a coverage score of 64%.

Several other smaller mobile operators exist and cover New Hanover County. These are Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) who purchase unused network capacity at wholesale prices to resell at retail prices to consumers. New Hanover residents also use telephony services from VoIP service providers in the county. VoIP allows users to make calls provided high-speed internet connections are available. VoIP offers a wealth of features such as call waiting, call blocking, and international calling. Depending on the needs of the customer, a VoIP plan can be cheap, and it is one of the best options for persons looking to cut down on their budgets.

What are New Hanover County Phone Scams?

New Hanover County phone scams involve a variety of illegitimate activities perpetrated over phone calls to extort money from county residents or wrongfully obtain sensitive personal information from them. These activities may involve tricks to lure you into buying phone-related products or services that turn to be substandard or non-existent or to make phone calls or texts to premium services by accident. Some scams are also designed to trick residents into signing up for expensive subscription services. There are a variety of frauds that target residents on their phones. Some of the most common in New Hanover County include arrest warrant scams, tech support scams, charity scams, and sweepstakes scams. Phone lookup applications can help unmask the real identities of phone scammers.

What are New Hanover County Arrest Warrant Scams?

Callers posing as employees of the police departments in New Hanover County often contact residents with fake arrest warrants in order to defraud them of money. The calls appear to originate from police department lines from callers offering to accept payments in exchange for doing away with outstanding arrest warrants.

In another variation of the scam, the caller claims to be an employee of the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office and leaves a message with a phone number to call. When a target calls back, the call is forwarded to the voicemail that mimics the real Sheriff's Office voicemail. The message in the voicemail directs the target to select an option that connects to a live person. The live person turns out to be a scammer who asks the target to purchase prepaid cards in order to ward off arrest. New Hanover County residents may use free reverse phone lookup tools to ascertain the true origins of suspicious phone numbers.

What are New Hanover County Tech Support Scams?

A scammer may fraudulently claim to be a technician or tech support from a reputable company as a ruse to gain remote access to your computer. Many times, the scammer will ask you to provide remote access to your computer so they can pretend to run a diagnostics test to discover some sort of issue. They may try to convince their targets to buy software that they do not need such as anti-viruses and system tune-up applications. If given access to a computer, a tech support scammer may be able to find sensitive data stored on the computer which will be later used for fraudulent activities.

Tech support scams may also begin with pop-ups on mobile phones or computer screens that display false error messages from your operating system. These pop-ups contain supposed tech support telephone numbers to call for help. You can use a reverse cell phone lookup tool to verify if a caller’s identity matches the name given.

What are New Hanover County Charity Scams?

Charity scams are quite prevalent after natural disasters such as pandemics, earthquakes, wildfires, and floods. Scammers use these opportunities to take advantage of the generosity of people who desire to help those affected by these mishaps. You may receive a phone call from a caller claiming to represent a known charity organization within or outside the State of North Carolina seeking donations for disaster-relief activities. Some may even try to coerce you into donating by imploring you to redeem a "promise" made to support a charitable act. Many residents make these donations without even following up on whether the funds were used for the activities outlined. In most instances, these organizations do not exist and are used to defraud residents. To help verify that callers are who they say they are, you can use good reverse phone lookup tools online to quickly do a number lookup or reverse number lookup.

What are New Hanover County Lotteries or Sweepstakes Scams?

Here, scammers inform their marks that they have won lotteries or sweepstakes of some kind and need to make some sort of payments to unlock the supposed prizes. The target may be informed that the payment is for tax, shipping, or processing. These fraudsters usually use the names of established and recognized lottery organizations to look real to their targets. At other times, they may pose as representatives of foreign lottery companies which may be difficult to research online. In most cases, the offers look enticing to the targets resulting in making the required payments to the callers. Upon making payment, the scammer disappears with the money and leaves the victim without a prize. There are free reverse phone number lookup tools online to help uncover who called and find who a number is registered to.

What are Robocalls and Spam Calls?

A robocall is an automated call placed using a predictive dialer to deliver prerecorded messages to a large audience. These predictive dialers are often located overseas and make millions of calls per hour at costs of fractions of a penny per call. However, some robocalls are legitimate and important, such as a reminder about a doctor’s appointment, an alert about a flight delay, and a public service announcement.

Although robocalls are useful in certain scenarios, New Hanover residents and North Carolina residents are battling a wave of thousands of robocalls disrupting communications for hours. Such robocalls represent unavoidable digital-age nuisance, resulting in seemingly constant interruptions targeting their phones. These are often spam calls owing to their unwanted nature and are used to fleece unsuspecting persons.

To limit the chances of being fleeced by robocalls placed by scammers, you may use reverse phone lookup tools to verify the identity of incoming calls.

Other steps to take to stop robocalls include:

• Do not answer calls from unknown numbers. Let them go to voicemail
• Hang up on robocalls. If you hear a recorded message after answering a call. Hang up immediately. Do not hit a button to stop receiving calls. Scammers often use these tricks to identify and then target live respondents
• If you receive a scam call, write down the number and file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC can help identify and take appropriate action to help consumers targeted by illegal callers.
• Ask your phone service provider if it offers a robocall blocking service.
• Consider registering your telephone numbers in the National Do Not Call Registry.
• Download a free call-blocking application from your mobile phone application store. Examples include Hiya, Nomorobo, and Truecaller.

How to Spot and Report New Hanover County Phone Scams?

Many New Hanover County residents are increasingly targeted by telephone scammers. They are not just annoying; they are relentless, they are an assault, and they are an invasion of privacy. If they are successful, scams are very damaging and very costly. One way to defeat scammers is to know how to identify scams and ignoring suspicious calls. Reverse phone lookup tools can also help limit the negative impacts of phone scams.

The following are red flags in identifying phone scams:

• The caller ID display is hidden: Some callers hide their caller ID so as not to reveal their identities. This is common practice among persons looking to defraud call recipients. If you keep getting calls from a caller with hidden caller identification, ignore such calls.
• The caller asks you to pay by wire transfer or gift cards: If a caller demands payment through methods that are difficult to trace, be wary. Scammers are known to typically ask for payment by wire transfers, gift cards, cryptocurrencies, and prepaid debit cards.
• The caller threatens or intimidates you: It is unlikely for a caller legitimately representing a government institution or a private business to threaten to arrest, fine, or revoke your license.  If a caller intimidates you with such threats, hang up immediately
• The caller demands that you make an immediate decision: This is a pressure tactic used by scammers to get targets to act on the spot by signing up on bogus schemes or making fund transfers without verifying the information provided. Refuse to give in to the pressure. Make required calls where necessary and check on the internet where possible to corroborate any information given.
• The caller asks for personal information: If a caller demands that you provide sensitive personal information over a phone call, any information provided is likely to be used for fraudulent activities. Some scammers will ask for private information such as Social Security numbers, Medicare numbers, PINs, and bank account information. Do not provide sensitive personal information to unsolicited callers.

You can file complaints with any of the following public bodies if you have been contacted by a scammer:

• The New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office and local police departments: If you have received a call from a scammer, you can contact your local police department or the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office at (910) 798-4200. In the county seat of Wilmington, you can contact the Wilmington Police Department at (910) 343-3609.
• The North Carolina Attorney General’s Office:  To report a scam, you can file a complaint online to the Consumer Protection Office by calling (877)-5-NO-SCAM  or (919) 716-6000 (outside of North Carolina).
• Federal Communications Commission: If you receive unwanted robocalls and text messages, you can file a report online with the FCC.
• Federal Trade Commission - The FTC protects consumers from deceptive and fraudulent practices. You can file a phone scam report with the FTC by completing the online complaint form.
• Social Security Administration: If you receive a scam call or you suspect you have been a victim of a scam from the Social Security Administration, report such calls by calling the Office of the Inspector General at (800) 269-0271 or make a report online.