by Jeff Quibell
25. September 2008 15:28
Recently I received a call from a friend in Blue Springs who had been the victim of a telephone scam. After verifying it with our local police department, I determined it was something that should be brought to everyone's attention.
The scam begins when you receive a phone call at your home from someone claiming to be with the Missouri Highway Patrol. They tell you that a close family member has been seriously injured in an accident and that you need to call a special number to get more information. They then give you the name of a Highway Patrol Sergeant and a telephone number to call that begins with *72.
The need to call another telephone number is the clue that you are being scammed. On AT&T phone lines, *72 is the code that allows you to forward your phone calls to another number. What the criminal is doing in this scam is tricking you into setting your phone to forward calls to a long distance number for the use of others. If it is a long distance call, your phone bill picks up the long distance changes.
Following are the steps to take if you have been a victim of this scam. First, dial *73 on your phone. This disables the forwarding. Then file a police report with your local police. In Blue Springs, the non-emergency number is 816-228-0150. If you wrote down the full number the caller gave you, be sure to give that number to the police. If you have caller id, give the number of the caller to the police as well. Finally you should contact your phone provider's customer service number and dispute any charges that have been incorrectly billed to your phone. For AT&T, the number is 1-800-807-4205. You will need to provide the police report to your phone company to help dispute the charges.
I hope that everyone finds this information useful and never needs to use it. Thank you for the opportunity to be of service!
Jeff Quibell