A new Phone Scam

[jak0215]

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to warn you all about something that happened to my company today.  A man called and told our receptionist that his name was “Joe” from Verizon and he was working on our lines that were down.  He then proceeded to give her directions to transfer his call to a certain number, usually 90 or 91, listen for the message and then hang up.  What was actually happening was that he was being connected to an outside line that then allowed him to process international calls.  He called our receptionist every 5 or so minutes all morning long and told her he was still working on the problem and that he was sorry for the interruptions – I even spoke with the man and he sounded very professional to me.  She did the right thing by asking our OM if she thought this was strange and that she had a bad feeling about all these calls.  Our OM saw nothing wrong with this because we actually have a few lines down and our phone company is working on the problem, that is why this scam worked so well for him.  AT&T’s called a few hours into this whole ordeal while I was covering the phone asking if we had any calls from someone saying that they were working on our lines.  It seems that AT&T has a Fraud Department and they track these sort of things.  They noticed multiple outgoing international calls from our company and called to see if everything was on the up and up.  Obviously it was not,  they told the OM that over 12 hrs of calls to Yemin (sp?) were made from our phone lines.  I have a fax that AT&T sent us if any of you would like to take a look at it and maybe pass on to your receptionist and OM’s.  It’s amazing how many ways people can scam you.  We are constantly on the look out for all kinds of phone scams, this one never crossed our minds.  We won’t be charged for all these calls but it sure is an eye opener.  

I hope you all have a great day.  

Jill

[blufire21]

We received a call similar to this about a year ago.  I just happened to hear about it from my last job (worked for a phone company) and knew better.  A good policy to have is to ask such people to please come up to the suite and show their identification.  Telco's will never ask you to dial anything like that.  


Ellen in TX

[laundryhater]

I'm confused. Who's your regular phone service provider? AT&T or Verizon?
If it's AT&T that should have tipped off the employee not to transfer the so-called Verizon repairman.

[mlm668]

I can clear that up for you LH.  On the east coast, Verizon handles local telephone service and AT&T handles long distances.  I hate it for the simple fact that I almost never call long distance and still get a bill from both.  The bills used to be combined, but recently split when Bell Atlantic & GTE merged last year.  My last AT&T bill was for $1.73.  You would wonder why they bothered printing that one and mailing it.

As for the phone scam, I have learned to question any caller that is even the least bit suspicious.  Its my way weeding out the scams and telemarketers.  Once you start questioning them (name, contact info, etc.), they usually hang up.

Michelle

[daisylee]

In telephone land...there are many ways to scam and slam.  Verizon might be the long distance provider, but AT&T is the line service.  It works that way all the time. (That's why you can call a local number and get though, but if you call long dis-tance, you get a "fast busy"...that means the outbound trunks are busy!)
There are really only a few companies that maintain the local lines, and the LDCs use the trunks to "transfer" calls.  The 91 and 99 and what you use to ping a PBX, and go out over the lines.  Thus allowing you to be transfered to any other number you want.  In any case, never transfer any of these calls, and report it to the local phone service and your long distance carrier, so they can look out for fraud phone charges.

Daisylee, former fraud investigator and Phone Goddess...

OOPS caught Michelle's post...reverse that order AT& T long dis...Verizon, local!

Edited by daisylee on 07/03/02 03:17 PM.

[jak0215]

Our receptionist did question the calls but the OM told her that they were legitimate due to our down line.  I think that these people are smart enough and technologically advanced enough to either know that our lines are down or bring our lines down them selves.  And yes, just about everyone here in Boston uses two and sometimes more phone services.  Meaning actual phone lines vs. IT lines.  There are so many companies that it is hard to keep them straight.  I guess that you live and learn.  Thanks for all your advice.

Have a great day.

Jill in Balmy Boston