Dial 9 scam

pricefighter

There is no way for a call to be switched to reverse charge mode in mid flight.This whole thing is an Urban Myth.Read the Sussex Police Fraud Squad Phone Scams report on this
at http://www.sussex.police.uk/ go to the Fraud Alerts and Scam section.Then go to phone scams.

mean.machine_2

This has been emailed around our office and is quite 'scary for the unwary ':eek:

Phone Fraud - Warning from the Police

11 May 2005

We have been advised of a telephone fraud currently in operation -this applies to home and work telephones, landlines and mobiles.

If you 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 in 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 by then will be £100.

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 dial 9, even safer HANG UP on any unsolicited 'free offer calls'.

There is another scam operating on mobile phones as well. A missed call comes up. The number is 0709 020 3840, the last four numbers may vary, but certainly the first four 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 ONTO YOUR FAMILY & FRIENDS.

soolin

Please *don't* pass this on to all your family and friends, this is an old chain letter type thing and is not accurate.

It's been discussed on this forum before.

It is scaremongering and could frighten vulnerable people who believe it.

Soo

mean.machine_2

:doh:
Sorry, this was posted in good faith. If it had been true I would have wanted to know. Not bad going getting a slapped wrist on what must be at least my third post!

soolin

I apologise if I came across as harsh. When you have been on the internet for any length of time you will begin to see so many of these emails that it does your head in. There are loads of them, ones about Bill Gates paying you to read email, solicitations for sick children and scare stories like this.

We can see through these stories for what they are, someone vulnerable like my lovely mother in law cannot, and when someone gave her a copy of a mail warning about phone engineers she was actually living in terror for days until she showed us the print out of the email that someone had given her.

Again I apologise if I was overly harsh. We are really quite nice on these boards but maybe some of us (like me) need to lay off the coffee sometimes.

Soo

Heinz

mean.machine wrote:

:doh:
Sorry, this was posted in good faith. If it had been true I would have wanted to know. Not bad going getting a slapped wrist on what must be at least my third post!

Please read THIS THREAD.

pricefighter

Mean Machine. I dont want to appear harsh, and i appreciate you placed it in good faith,and obviously we would all want to know about it if was true.But if you had bothered to read my posting before yours,and looked at the Sussex Police Website you would have seen it was load of old mularkey.

There are numerous downsides to these hoaxes.You and other members might be interested in visiting the CIA C site http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org to read about the problem.

Edinburghlass_2

In fact pricefighter, post 33 meanmachine actually posted on the Anything Else and someone (not me ) has merged these posts with this thread and hence he hadn't read your post.

I think he already feels suitably chastised

pricefighter

Sorry i didnt realise that. Otherwise i would have posted my response differently.Slap my wrist!!! Thanks for pointing it out.

Never the less the site CIAC site http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org is worth a visit for interested parties

soolin

Mods there is yet another 'warning' email on the warning board can it please be merged into this thread? Thank you.

Soo