809
by Peter Hess
APCUG Director
From the September 2001 issue of the I/O Port Newsletter
I received the following Scam advisory at work yesterday. I had heard about
this scam before but I thought it might be a good idea to repeat. If you
have seen it before I apologize for the intrusion.
Telecommunication departments have been notified by Verizon and the National
Fraud Information Center of a major telephone scam involving area code 809.
How It Works:
You will receive a message on your answering machine or your pager which
asks you to call a number beginning with area code 809. The reason you're
asked to call varies. It can be to receive information about a family member
who has been ill, to tell you someone has been arrested, died, to let you
know you have won a wonderful prize, etc. In each case, you are told to call
809-XXX-XXXX right away. Since there are so many new area codes these days,
people unknowingly return these calls. If you call from the US, you will be
charged an extremely high per-minute rate (hundreds of dollars). Or, you'll
get a long recorded message. The point is, they will try to keep you on the
phone as long as possible to increase the charges to your phone bill.
We recommend that no matter how you get the message, if you are asked to
call a number with an 809 area code or any other area code that you don't
recognize, investigate further and/or just disregard the message.
For more information on the Tulsa Computer Society click here
Tulsa Computer Society 9/04/2001
Don Singleton, President