Last Saturday, Memorial Day weekend, I had just come home and was starting to unwind. I put a movie into the DVD player. Before the previews were over, my phone began to ring.
It was a collect call from "an inmate the Fulton County Jail." I took the call and the gist of what the caller said went something like this:
"Hi, man this isn't my neighbor. Did I call the wrong number? I really need your help. Please help me out." And so I bite.
I allowed the guy to tell me his problem (sic.)
"Look man, I was pulled over for driving on a suspened license and they have my son downstairs. If I don't get in touch with my wife really soon, the will put my son into DFACS custody."
I agreed to help this guy and he gives me his wife's phone number (and he says she is a "dispatcher" with Gwinnett Medical Center), but he says it is a "direct line" and I'll have to dial *72 first. So I give the number a try. It doesn't work. Being concerned that the case involved DFACS, I try the number without the *72 and an Indian woman answered, but knew nothing about the man in jail. Knowing a bit about the Gwinnett Medical Center, I called my contacts... and sure enough, there is a woman by the name given to me. But, she says, "sir, this is what happened to you"... and she told me the story as I told it to you. She said, that guy made up a name and unfortunately it was a real person, but you got scammed. They've done it from jail many times and I get this call a couple times a week. When you dialed *72, it opened your line so that they can use it for making long distance calls collect on their phone - only using your number as the billing number.
Well, the business offices to BellSouth are only opened during normal business hours and I had to wait until Tuesday to report this to the phone company. I did report it to the Gwinnett Police who reported it to Fulton County, but it is a known scam. I told the story at work and one alcoholic woman got a chuckle over my misfortune and explained how it worked. She claims to have done it all the time when she was in jail.
So, beware. the *72 feature is NOT one you want to ever use. And don't fall victim to that scam. |
