Scary reason why you should never answer if someone asks 'can you hear me' on the phone

There's a four-word phone scam you should listen out for next time you pick up the phone to a number you don't recognize.

If you see a random number calling you, the likelihood is you feel anxiety rise deep within you, your hand whizzes out to silence the call and unless they leave a message, you try your best to forget about the mortifying experience of someone trying to speak to you over the phone and carry on with your day - no? Just me?

However, should you be one of the brave people who does dare answer the phone in this day and age, heed this warning - should you hear someone ask you if you can 'hear' them, alarm bells should start sounding within your brain.

Phone call scams have increased by a whopping 118 percent in the past year, Reader's Digest reports.

And while many of us are fine-tuned to the texts pretending to be from a delivery service or a phishing email, phone calls can be a bit harder to spot when a scam is occuring.

Millions of Americans have fallen victim to phone scammers using AI looking to steal their money and identities, First Orion warns.

Adam Gordon, an instructor at ITProTV who also provides IT training, says all phone scams are 'designed to do two things: gain information about you that can be used to impersonate you [through] identity theft, and get you to give money to the scammer'.

And one particular phone scam sees a recorded voice ask: "Can you hear hear me?"

But what's so bad about that? I hear you say.

Maybe us anxious phone callers have a point eh? (Getty Stock Images/ Calvin Chan Wai Meng)

Well, the phrase is designed to trick the victim into saying 'yes'.

"This phone scam is particularly frightening [because] they simply rely on the human behavior of answering a quick question,” says Matthew Shirley, director of offensive cybersecurity operations at Fortalice added.

From there, scammers could use the recording of you saying 'yes' to pretend to be you to make purchases and access more information.

This comes after an iPhone user 'lost everything' when they downloaded a 'scam' App Store app.

Last month, a fake cryptocurrency app claiming to be affiliated with Bitcoin wallet Leather was circulating and could be found on the App Store.

Be careful what you answer on the phone (Getty Stock Images/ ArtMarie)

The app was causing chaos across the web, as it was apparently robbing people of their digital assets.

Published by a developer called LetalComRu, the app uses the Leather logo.

So, it led to many believing the app was genuine and subsequently downloaded the app.

Adding further to the legitimacy, the makers of the app even collected fake reviews, making suspicions even lowered for many.

Apple has since confirmed to iMore that the fake app has indeed been removed.