Mobile phone call scam - fact or fiction?
 

Have just received an email warning of a scam - but it sounds like a hoax to me. Anyone know if it's fact or fiction?

"...Subject: Mobile Telephone Scams

We have been advised of a telephone fraud currently in operation (this applies to home and/or work telephones - land lines and mobiles): If you do receive one of these calls, upon answering the telephone, you will hear a recorded message congratulating you on winning an all expenses trip to an exotic location. You will then be asked to press 9 to hear further details. If you press 9 you will be connected to a premium rate line that costs approximately £20 per minute. Even if you disconnect immediately, it will remain connected for a minimum of 5 minutes, costing around £100. The final part of the call involves you being asked to key your postcode and house number (which has other serious consequences). After a further 2 minutes you will receive a message informing you that you are not one of the lucky winners. The total bill will be £260.

Since the calls are originating from outside the UK, BT and other telephone companies are left relatively powerless to act. The only safe solution is to HANG UP before the message prompts you to press 9; even safer is to HANG UP on any unsolicited 'free offer' call. This appears to be a variation on a theme, warnings have been sent previously regarding calls made by individuals claiming to be engineers conducting a test on the line and asking for 9, 0# and text messages similar to the routine described above. DO NOT DIAL 9 (OR 9,0# OR 0,9#) FOR ANYONE! BT has been contacted and confirmed the details as being true.

There is another scam operating on Mobile Phones. A missed Call comes up. The number is 0709 020 3840. The last four numbers may vary but certainly the first four numbers will remain the same. If you call this number back, you will be charged £50 per minute. People have complained about their phone bills, once they have realised the cost of the call but apparently this is completely legal. So beware, do not call back numbers beginning with 0709.

Please pass this information on to your colleagues, family, and friends..."


If it's a SIAL, my apologies;)

Fiction. Premium rate calls in the UK are capped to £1.50 per minute IIRC.

Doesnt stop stupid employees mailing to everyone in the address book, customers included :rolleyes:

Yep, I was on a distribution list of just under 500... and if just half send the message on to, say, 10 people - and they then all do the same...

Yep as above 09 numbers cannot charge more than £1.50 per minute, check out http://www.icstis.org/ for details.

Gary

Its not a scam - I won! :)

I'm off to Barbados next week :D:D

Apparently I was the only one to press 9, apparenty all other contestants had read some hoax email.....

Dumbass woman next door to me printed it off and put it through everyone in the street's letterbox. She's self-appointed herself as neighbourhood watch and tries to but in on everything.

If you remember my thread from a while ago its the tree nutters :)

Andy

Just found this - http://www.gov.im/lib/news/oft/whats...airtrading.xml

This hoax is very old. Why do people bother doing this stuff?

Hi,

being in the industry I get to hear about these scams all the time ! Its curently impossible to put you through to another number if you dial 9 and then charge the call to you as the connection is being made by another party. Also, UK PRS numbers are capped at £1.50.

Jai

It's obviously fake.
Some of the details such as how getting you to press one key suddenly makes your phone dial out may not be obvious crap to someone who doesn't work in telecoms, but really how the hell are you supposed to key in your postcode on a telephone keypad? It's not like typing an SMS where you have a screen to confirm you got it right

Edit: try http://www.brainstorm.co.uk/uk_std_code_search.htm if you want to know who numbers belong to.