phone scam

[greeneyedlady]

From the email files comes this little tidbit:

I received a telephone call last evening from an individual
identifying himself as an AT&T Service technician who was conducting a

test on telephone lines. He stated that to complete the test I should
touch nine(9), zero(0), the pound sign (#), and then hang up.

Luckily, I was suspicious and refused.

Upon contacting the telephone company, I was informed that by pushing
90#, you give the requesting individual full access to your telephone
line, which enables them to place long distance calls billed to your
home phone number.

I was further informed that this scam has been originating from many
local jails/prisons. I have also verified this information with UCB
Telecom,Pacific Bell, MCI, Bell Atlantic and GTE. Please beware.

DO NOT press 90# for ANYONE.

The GTE Security Department requested that I share this information
with EVERYONE I KNOW.

PLEASE pass this on to everyone YOU know.

If you have mailing lists and/or newsletters from organizations you
are connected with, I encourage you to pass on this information to
them.

After checking with Verizon they said it was true, so do not dial
(9),zero(0), the pound sign # and hang up for anyone.



And for those of you who are connected to snopes at the hip:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/jailcall.htm

 

[ScottoMacD]

This is from urbanlegends.com

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa021898.htm

Urban Legends and Folklore
The 90# Telephone Scam

Netlore Archive
By Patrick Crispen (reprinted, by permission, from The Internet TourBus, February 12, 1998)

According to our next urban legend:

On Saturday, 24 January 1998, Naval Air Station, Joint Reserve Base, New Orleans' Quarterdeck received a telephone call from an individual identifying himself as an AT&T Service Technician that was running a test on our telephone lines. He stated that to complete the test the QMOW should touch nine (9), zero (0), pound sign (#) and hang up. Luckily, the QMOW was suspicious and refused. Upon contacting the telephone company we were informed that by using 90# you end up giving the individual that called you access to your telephone line and allows them to place a long distance telephone call, with the charge appearing on your telephone [bill]. We were further informed that this scam has been originating from many of the local jails/prisons. Please 'pass the word.'
Well, your fearless bus driver spent most of Tuesday on the phone with folks from both Force 3 (the company that originally reported this story) and AT&T (the long distance telephone company whose logo looks an awful lot like Darth Vader's Death Star). As shocking as this may sound, the "nine-zero-pound" story is true ... sort of.

What the warning letter floating around the Net doesn't say is that this scam only works on telephones where you have to dial 9 to get an outside line. Unless you have to dial 9 to get an outside line at home, this scam does not affect residential telephone users. Dialing "nine-zero-pound" on a residential phone will only give you a busy signal. That's it.

On some business phones, however, dialing "nine-zero-pound" may transfer a call to an outside operator and give the caller the opportunity to call anywhere in the world and charge it to your business' phone bill ... maybe. It all depends on how your business' telephone system is set up. If your company doesn't require you to dial 9 to get an outside line (for example, if you have a direct outside telephone line on your desk or if your company's phone system requires you to dial a number other than 9 to get an outside line) the "nine-zero-pound" scam does not affect you. Also, if your company's phone system is set up so that you cannot make a long distance call once you have accessed an outside line (a lot of companies now limit all outside lines to local calls only), the "nine-zero-pound" scam does not affect you either.

The "nine-zero-pound" story only affects those businesses that require you to dial 9 to get an outside line and then place no restrictions on who or where you can call once you get that outside line. And, just to be anal-retentive, let me say one more time that, unless you have to dial 9 to get an outside line at home, this scam does not affect residential telephone users. [It also probably doesn't affect non-US telephone users. This is especially true for British telephone users whose telephone system is so complex that NO ONE in the UK knows how to use BT's phones (although I am sure that BT users are currently dealing with some sort of "dial q-seven-pi-cromwell-eleventeen-tomato" scam)].

 

[greeneyedlady]

scott I posted the link to snopes for everybody to read I already had read it myself and knew what it said, I posted this thread because I remember when this was happening at my hospital where somebody was calling in claiming to be a doctor and getting an outside line and charging up a hugh long distance bill to my hospital, maybe I should have said that I had personal experience with this scam and that it does work at places of business where you dial 9 to get an outside line

 

[ScottoMacD]

I wasn't trying to be a smart-*** GEL.

I just thought that I was being helpful showing that most home users need not worry.

Sorry.