What are Beaufort County Area Codes?
Area codes are the three-digit numbers that specify the originating locations or destinations of specific calls. Also known as Numbering Plan Areas (NPAs), area codes appear before the main telephone numbers in North America. Pursuant to the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), specific area codes are assigned to serve geographical locations. There are overlay area codes to support the initial area codes in cases of the exhaustion of the original area codes. Hence, some communities may have more than one area code serving them. Considering the several area codes available, it might not be easy to discern the geographical areas each represents. However, conducting area code lookups with reverse cell phone lookup services makes it easier to identify area codes.
The two area codes that serve Beaufort County include:
Area Code 843
Area code 843 serves the eastern third of South Carolina. It became active on March 22, 1998, as a split from area code 803. It stretches across the Grand Strand, the Lowcountry, the Pee Dee, and the Sandhills. Some cities area code 843 serves include Beaufort, Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head Island, and Florence.
Area Code 854
Area code 854 came into service in 2015 and it serves as the overlay area code 843. Area code 854 serves 31 cities, some of which include Lake view, Summerville, Chesterfield, Bonneau, and Charleston.
What are the Best Cell Phone Plans in Beaufort County?
The cell phone carrier with the best network coverage in Beaufort County is Verizon. With 100% coverage, it serves most of the cities in Beaufort County, although the data quality is low. T-Mobile also offers good coverage in some areas like Okatie and Bluffton with 98% and 94% respectively. AT&T is also active with 92% coverage.
The 2018 National Center of Health Statistics survey shows the percentages of adults and minors in South Carolina that use wireless telephones and landlines. From the survey, it can be deduced that most adults and minors in South Carolina solely used wireless telephones, instead of landlines. However, the disparity is more evident among the minors in the state. The telephone status survey shows that 55.7% of the South Carolina adult population solely used wireless telephones, while 4.9% of South Carolina adults solely used only landlines as their preferred telephony service. Conversely, 67.2% of minors in South Carolina used only wireless telephone services, while only 1.9% of minors used landlines.
VoIP services are available in Beaufort County, and they provide considerably good coverage. VoIP is the short form for Voice over Internet Protocol. It uses high-speed internet connections to enable voice and multimedia communications between one or multiple parties. Generally, VoIP is widely used because of its flexibility, affordability, and several functions it facilitates at reasonable costs. Most companies that offer VoIP services have tailor-made plans to suit the needs of businesses and even residents in the county. These plans typically provide various functions, such as advanced call management, name dialing, auto line attendants, anonymous calling, call routing, voicemail/ call forwarding, conference calling, call analytics, and call rejection. VoIP provides these services at reasonable costs.
What are Beaufort County Phone Scams?
Beaufort County phone scams involve scammers calling residents randomly to perpetrate fraudulent ploys over telephone conversations. These scammers exploit technological advancements, using them to facilitate their scams, which involve stealing residents’ money and personal details for identity theft. Technological innovations in telecommunications such as robocalls and Caller ID spoofing make it easy to impersonate legitimate entities. Therefore, they hide their identities or claim to be persons that are not to gain the residents’ trust. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) creates awareness on how to recognize illegal Caller ID spoofing and block unwanted calls. Note that deceit is another major technique scammers use, making unsuspecting residents believe untrue stories or bogus offers. In some cases, the scammers request personal information and claim to require it for official updates and to issue specific benefits.
Despite the menace of phone scams, residents can avoid falling victim by always performing phone number lookups using reverse cell phone lookup services when they get calls from unknown phone numbers. They must also not solely rely on the caller information shown on their Caller ID displays because of Caller ID spoofing. Conducting reverse phone lookup free of charge can help identify Caller ID spoofing.
Common Beaufort County phone scams include:
What are Beaufort County Diplomat Scams?
In this scam, the caller poses as a diplomat, claiming to have a large sum of money that they want to give the recipient of the call. The caller then requests a form of payment to facilitate the delivery of the money. The caller sometimes specifies the mode of payment, which may be via prepaid cards, PayPal, gift cards, bitcoins, or wire transfers. These modes of payments are untraceable and practically impossible to retrieve. Note that gift offers and other winnings are supposed to be issued freely without requiring you to pay any processing fees. Be wary of such claims and conduct suspicious phone number lookups using reverse phone lookup tools to identify the scam callers.
What are Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office Scams?
Scammers mostly use Caller ID spoofing to facilitate these scams, thereby impersonating members of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office or other law enforcement agencies. The scammers insist that the persons they call immediately pay fines for committing certain offenses, such as missing jury duty or IRS tax delinquency. They then add that the recipient will be arrested and jailed if the payment is not made promptly.
The Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office warns of these scams. They add that members of the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office will never call to ask you to pay a fine over the phone to avoid getting arrested. Do not respond to such scams by paying or sharing your personal information. Instead, do a phone number lookup tool to find out who called you. Such tools can also help you identify whether or not the caller spoofed the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office’s Caller ID.
What are Beaufort County Charity Scams?
Charity scams are quite popular in Beaufort County in seasons when the county is experiencing or has just experienced a catastrophic event. Fraudsters capitalize on this and attempt to play on the emotions of residents. They call residents and make highly emotional solicitations, pleading that they help displaced or less privileged residents. Typically, these scammers either impersonate existing charity organizations or claim to represent nonexistent charity organizations. In both cases, they end up embezzling the money and cutting off contact with the donators.
Never trust persons calling to seek donations over the phone because, in most cases, they are scammers. While legitimate charitable organizations regularly call to solicit donations, you must verify the authenticity of such calls by conducting reverse phone lookups. After ascertaining the callers’ identity, conduct a background check on the charitable organization the caller claims to represent. Generally, it is best practice to donate directly to legitimate organizations instead of random callers soliciting donations.
What are Beaufort County Grandparent Scams?
Grandparent scams aim to defraud senior citizens while taking undue advantage of their emotions. These scammers call and pretend to be grandchildren of their targets. They claim to need urgent financial assistance from the targets and even sound like they are under pressure. In some cases, the scammers may say they are stranded out of town, were involved in accidents, were hospitalized, or even arrested. Typically, the scammers request secrecy, pleading that their grandparents do not tell other relatives because they do not want them to be involved. The scammers do this to ensure that their false story is not verified.
A recipient of such a call should make sure they verify the call by conducting a phone number search to determine who called and answer the question, “who is this number registered to?” They can also contact a trusted relative to verify the caller’s identity and story.
What are Robocalls and Spam Calls?
Robocalls are automated calls designed to transmit information to several people within a short time frame. Robocalls were initially designed to be strictly informational, but now people use them to illegally send irrelevant messages in bulk, just like spam calls. Spam calls are unwanted calls that include messages that do not have direct relevance to the receipts. The calls simply constitute a nuisance by proselytizing and advertising bogus products and services. While legal robocalls are meant to deliver emergency announcements and create awareness for good causes, scammers illegally use robocalls. They use the calls to steal residents’ hard-earned or even steal their personal information. Most illegal robocalls include directives for residents to be transferred to live agents or stop receiving the calls. Residents should not follow such instructions and simply hang up to avoid engaging with robocalls that are most likely scams.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was designed to regulate robocalls. This Act mandates that individuals first seek prior written consent before placing robocalls. Only robocalls sent to residents after obtaining their written consent are legal; hence any robocalls that violate the permission rule can be reported. However, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) exempts the robocalls listed below from the consent requirement:
- Robocalls for political campaigns
- Robocalls by charitable organizations
- Debt collection robocalls
- Robocalls by legitimate health institutions
- Strictly informational robocalls
Adhere to the following measures to combat spam calls and robocalls:
- Do not pick robocalls and terminate them if mistakenly picked. Also, block them from ever calling you. You may contact your phone network provider for more call-blocking options.
- Do not follow any instructions given during the call.
- Report unwanted calls to the FTC through the online complaint assistant page or call 1-888-382-1222 to report.
- Include your phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry to restrict robocalls. Residents that have registered on the registry can report any robocalls they receive after 31 days of registration, as there are high chances that such robocalls are fraudulent.
How to Spot and Report Beaufort County Phone Scams?
Phone scams cause serious problems to their victims, causing them to lose their hard-earned money. These scammers have also started exploiting technological developments in telecommunications. Unfortunately, this makes it even more difficult to identify them. However, reverse phone look up tools are essential weapons to combat phone scams. With these tools, residents can conduct phone number searches to verify callers’ IDs. Asides from using these tools, they must also be alert and look out for red flags of scammers when they receive calls. The red flags include:
- The caller tries to mount pressure on you and uses fear tactics to make you act without duly reviewing your actions.
- The caller requests that the call is kept confidential and refuses to reveal their identity.
- The caller asks you to pay before you are awarded supposed winnings.
- The caller dictates a particular unconventional means of payment, which may be through wire transfers, bitcoins, cash, gift cards, prepaid cards. Payment via these means is hard to trace and retrieve.
- The caller threatens you with arrest, license revocation, deportation, and other extreme consequences while requesting money or personal information. Residents should never disclose any private information such as social security numbers, mothers' maiden names, credit card numbers, passwords, etc.
- The caller offers to help retrieve money lost to scams for a fee.
- The caller makes highly emotional solicitations that are not verifiable.
- The caller advertises investment or business opportunities that are supposed “once in a lifetime opportunities” and appears to be too good to be true
Persons that notice any of these red flags during calls can report them to these government agencies:
Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office - Residents can report scam cases to the Sheriff’s Office by using the Contact Us or calling 843-524-2777 and 911 (for emergency cases only)
Office of the Attorney General of South Carolina Consumer Protection Section - Residents can report identity theft and other scams by calling 1 (844) TELL-DCA (835-5322) or tweeting @SCDCA using the hashtag #TellDCA. Residents may also complete the Report a Scam form.
Federal Communications Commission - Persons that fall victim to Caller ID spoofing frauds, illegal robocalls, and other phone scams can report to the FCC by completing the online complaint form.
Federal Bureau of Investigation - Residents can report general fraud and criminal matters to (202) 324-3000.
Federal Trade Commission - Persons that fall victim to identity theft, illegal Caller ID spoofing, illegal robocalls, unwanted telemarketing, texts, or spam calls, and other scams can report using the FTC’s online consumer complaint assistant. Reports can also be made by calling 877-FTC-HELP or 877-ID-THEFT.