# Beware this new phone scam!



## Blythespirit (Oct 13, 2012)

Hello all, hope you are all well.

I know I'm quite the stranger here these days, although I do often lurk and check up on you all. I was without a computer for a while and guess I just got myself out of the loop a bit. 

Anyway, I got this e-mail today from a friend in high places, thought it was a bit scary and decided to pass the information on, here and in other places that I lurk or frequent. XXXX

New Area  Code - PLEASE READ Be sure you read this and  pass it on.  809 Area  Code We  actually received a call last week from the  809 area code. The woman said  'Hey, this is Karen.  Sorry I missed you- get  back to us quickly.  I have something important  to tell you.' Then she repeated a phone number beginning with 809.We did not  respond.  Then this week, we received the following e-mail:
Do  Not DIAL AREA  CODE 809, 284, AND 876 from the UK . U.S. or Canada .
This one is being distributed all over the US ... This is pretty  scary, especially given the way they try to get  you to call.  Be  sure you read this and pass it on.  They get you to call by telling you that it is information about a family member who has been ill or to tell you someone has been arrested, died, or to let you know you have won a  wonderful prize, etc.. 
In each case, you are told to call the 809 number right away.  Since there are so many new area codes these days, people unknowingly return these calls.

If you call from the UK . U.S or Canada , you will apparently be charged a minimum of $2425  per-minute.  And  you'll also get a long recorded message.  The  point is, they will try to keep you on the phone as long as possible to increase the charges. 
WHY IT WORKS:

The 809 area code is located in the Dominican Republic     ... 

The charges afterwards can become a real nightmare. That's because you did actually make the call.  If you complain, both your local phone company and your long distance carrier will not want to get involved and will most likely tell you that they are simply providing the billing for the foreign company. You'll end up dealing with a foreign company that argues  they have done nothing wrong.

Please  forward this entire message to your friends,  family and colleagues to help them become aware  of this scam.




No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com/
Version: 2012.0.2178 / Virus Database: 2437/5200 - Release Date: 08/14/12




 Take care everyone. XXXX


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## trophywench (Oct 13, 2012)

It isn't a new Scam, it's an old one re-visited, check out Snopes!

Why WOULD you ring an 809 code in the first place?  Why would you ever think someone you knew was in a place that had a code like that?  (unless they had specifically told you last week they were off to the Dom Repub for a fortnight)


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## Blythespirit (Oct 13, 2012)

Well it was a new one to me and my friend thought it important enough to pass on. As she said, there are a lot of new codes these days. My daughter lives just across the road from me and her code is different from mine. Also, they don't claim to be a friend, rather some official body with some important information. I wouldn't call them back, my friend didn't call them back, but some might. Not everyone would know that these codes are in the Dom Republic. Sorry I posted. Bye.Take care. XXXX


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## Northerner (Oct 13, 2012)

Blythespirit said:


> Well it was a new one to me and my friend thought it important enough to pass on. As she said, there are a lot of new codes these days. My daughter lives just across the road from me and her code is different from mine. Also, they don't claim to be a friend, rather some official body with some important information. I wouldn't call them back, my friend didn't call them back, but some might. Not everyone would know that these codes are in the Dom Republic. Sorry I posted. Bye.Take care. XXXX



Don't apologise for posting it Faith! Not everyone will have heard about it, and the danger of someone not knowing and responding could clearly be very expensive, so thank you. Lovely to hear from you, I hope you are doing well


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## Vicsetter (Oct 13, 2012)

If you aren't sure of the source of any email or phone communication then it always pays to be suspicious.  If you are asked to dial a specific number its easy enough to look it up here:
http://www.thephonebook.bt.com/publisha.content/en/search/international/index.publisha

as has been previously mention, if you think it may be a scam then search Snopes here: http://www.snopes.com

If you are told to call area code 809 I would be immediately suspicious  as this is an American term.  We have STD codes or country codes not area codes.


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## Steff (Oct 13, 2012)

Thanks for the heads up about this faith these scams get more and more each day,don't apologise for posting I just think some people need to sound a little less nasty in there replies lately


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## robofski (Oct 13, 2012)

Old scam or not, there are ALWAYS people who won't know of it.  If one person reads this and then doesn't get scammed it was worth posting.


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## Blythespirit (Oct 13, 2012)

Thank you for your replies Alan, Steph and robofski. Nice to meet you by the way. Not been around for a while but was always nattering on here a while back. 

My point exactly. I'm sure many people would be wary of such a message but these scams do catch people out, or there would be no point in people doing them. At least we can all rest easy knowing no one will ever catch TW out. Lol XXXX


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## trophywench (Oct 14, 2012)

Sorry on the right thread Faith, the reply was meant to encourage anyone receiving such emails to check em out on Snopes before starting to get worried.

If it hasn't already been de-bunked on Snopes, THEN get worried about your friend ....

This one I did happen to know about right away - cos my BiL sent it my husband the other day, and we'd Snopes'd it then ourselves!

Spect it might have been helpful to have said that .....


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## lucy123 (Oct 14, 2012)

Thanks for this Faith - I hadn't heard of it before - although I have heard of many more. But what an astronomical amount to be charged if you do get caught.

I will ring my mum now to let her know. This is something that would definitely catch her out - and she is 72!

Nice to see you back posting again too - dont be a stranger.


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## Caroline (Oct 14, 2012)

That scam has been doing the rounds for some time. Unless we know who the number belongs to we do not call back and if they leave a number we work on the theory if it is really important they will call back.

I also ignore all emails telling me I have won mega bucks or I have a tax rfund as hey are scams too.


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## robert@fm (Oct 20, 2012)

A common scam is that spam emails often try to trick the recipient into running a program and thereby infecting their computer with malware.  This one has evolved over the years; at first, the attachment was openly a program but usually sent by "Microsoft" or allegedly by some trusted antivirus vendor, and purporting (ironically) to be a security patch or the like.

It turned out that few people are dumb enough to run a program received out of the blue (even if it claims to be from a trusted source), so the scum switched to exploiting a nasty loophole in recent versions of Windows; they have a  folder view setting called "Hide extensions for known file types" which is on by default, so a scammer can send a file called "something.txt.exe" and it will appear to most recipients as "something.txt".  Partly for this reason, in a new Windows install one of the first things I for one do is to turn that dumb setting off.  (It's also necessary to turn off "Hide protected system files", because Windows Mediocre Player, and some other software which downloads album art, has the nasty bug of tagging downloaded album art as system files.)

This one too has worn thin, so now they use the more sophisticated method of faking the MIME type of attachments.  I just today got such a spam which wasn't detected as such by GMail, thus got forwarded to my main account; it had an attachment called "something.txt" (I forgot the file name), so out of curiosity I switched to raw view, and sure enough the so-called "text" attachment actually had a MIME type of "application/x-octet-stream", meaning that it was an .EXE file.

Fiendish clever, these lowlifes.


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## Northerner (Oct 20, 2012)

Very interesting Robert, thanks for that  Off to check my settings!


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