Re: [CH] definitely off topic but interesting!

Peter Shipley (PJS@smtp.co.alachua.fl.us)
Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:06:58 -0400 

>>> <Jc4ft35in@aol.com> 08/20/99 11:39am >>>

    i do not know if this true but it could be and i thought that everyone or 
someone might be interested.  if not delete and i will not do it again.
>> This came from a very reliable source, so please don't holler at me if it
>is a hoax, but I felt I was obligated to pass this on since I know I probably
>>  would'n't have known not to respond to something like this
>>
>>  Kathy

>>  >>>> SPECIAL ALERT - DO NOT EVER DIAL AREA CODE 809
>>  >>>>

<snip>

Sounds like a hoax, but it isn't.  Here's what the urban legend gurus at
www.snopes.com have to say about the scam:

Pete
________________

809 Phone Scam 

Claim: Unsuspecting phone customers have been gulled by scam artists into placing
calls to area codes in the Caribbean that result in exorbitant long-distance charges. 
Status: True. 

Origins: Circulating on the net are dire warnings not to call numbers in the 809 area
code, because these codes are part of scams designed to run up your phone bill. The
warnings are correct in that if you call one of these numbers in pursuit of a "mystery
shopper" job or information about an "injured" relative, or you simply return a call to
a mysterious number on your pager, your phone bill will go way up. Not because calls
to the 809 area code are billed at a higher rate than calls to any other area code, but
rather because you will deliberately be kept on the line while the clock is ticking. 

So the warnings are right that you will get suckered, just not about how this will
happen. Alerts have been been posted at the sites of both the Better Business
Bureau and the National Fraud Information Center alerting businessmen especially to
"faxback" solicitations employing the "809" callback trick, including at least one
newspaper that received a call from entities representing a supposed hotel
development in the Dominican Republic (within the 809 area code) asking for
advertising rate quotes, claiming that "start-up pressures prevent us at this 
time from using the mails" to request rate cards. 

As reported in 1996: The evildoers have planted 809 numbers in enticing newspaper
classifieds that offer fun and easy employment, they have randomly punched them
into paging services, and they have left them along with ominous messages to impel
people to call to find out about unnamed hospitalized relatives or endangered credit
ratings. The Internet warning claimed the 809 numbers are the unregulated, overseas
equivalent of pay-per-call 900 services and that the owners charge up to $25 a minute
for connect time. In fact, 809 numbers are billed just like other international calls. 

The monkey business begins outside the reach of U.S. law, where opportunistic
foreign telephone companies cut deals with the crooks, giving them up to 60 percent
of the charges as a kickback, according to officials at AT&T. 

The author of this piece went on to describe his experience in answering a 'help
wanted' ad for mystery shoppers. He got an answering machine, and the message
just went on and on. The voice on the tape was "slow and maddeningly repetitive, as
if he were speaking to 3rd graders." Just to listen to all of the spiel cost $40. 

As to how long people have been getting taken in this way: The wicked reportedly
began working this scam three years ago when the law cracked down on domestic
900-number abuses, but its reach is still hard to measure. The Fraud Information
Center, a division of the National Consumers League, reports a "big surge" in related
complaint calls to its hot line since fall, which is when the Federal Communications
Commission issued a consumer alert on 809 calls. Things are about to get worse,
because that infamous off-shore area code (809) is in the process of breaking up into
smaller chunks, and you'll soon have to think twice about calling any of the following
area codes: 242, 246, 264, 268, 284, 345, 441, 473, 664, 758, 767, 784, 787, 868, 869,
876 as well as 809. 

Barbara "(what a) sorry wrong number!" Mikkelson 
Last updated: 28 October 1998 
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/spoons/faxlore/809.htm