Telus dealer warns of possible phone phishing scam

Bruce Clement, founder of local Telus mobility dealer North Shore Alarms & Telecom, contacted SooToday.com late Friday night about a possible phone phishing telemarketing scam that's starting to hit our area.

On the surface, the calls appear to be a rather cheesy travel sales pitch, but Clement believes it might actually be a ploy to bill long-distance calls to your phone account.

"Clients are receiving calls to both their land-line and cell phones with a recorded message stating that they have won a trip to Florida or other destinations," Clement told us.

"You are then prompted to press a key on your telephone to obtain more information," he says.

If the key is pressed, Clement says, customers may unwittingly allow the caller access to long-distance service charged to their land-line or cell phone accounts.

Two calls on Friday

"This was again confirmed [Friday] when we ourselves received such a call at our Trunk Road Telus location," Clement said.

"The call came in on our regular business landline and luckily the staff member who answered recognized the potential risk and immediately hung up. Again this [Friday] evening, I personally received a similar call on my cell phone."

Cell phone numbers are usually unpublished, Clement says, so the caller appears to be using auto-dialing equipment to mass-dial telephone exchanges.

Clement says both of the calls he received on his business line and cell phone originated from the Florida area code 305.

"The clients we spoke to over the past few days also stated that the calls they received were also from the area code 305.

Press '9' to learn more

"With great concern for both our clients and all fellow Saultites, we urge anyone who receives such a call to immediately hang up, or if you have Caller ID, simply not answer any calls from unrecognized area codes such as 305.

Yesterday, Clement contacted the Sault Ste. Marie Police Service and the Sault Ste. Marie Chamber of Commerce about his concerns.

At time of writing (6:30 a.m. Saturday), neither agency had issued a fraud alert about the calls.

A SooToday.com search of Internet user forums has turned up numerous complaints from others who've received calls from the same number that contacted Clement's business and cell phones.

A recorded message in a woman's voice advises call recipients that they've just won a five-day vacation for $99.

Winners are then asked to dial "9" to speak to an operator.

Difference of opinion

There's some difference of opinion, however, as to whether pressing that key really places phone customers at any significant risk.

The urban-legends website Snopes.com, which SooToday.com regularly consults, ackowledges that it's technically possible for a scammer to get free access to long-distance calls in this way, but concludes that "this warning is overblown in that there is practically no chance that the scam outlined above could affect the average residential or cell phone customer."

However, a blitz of similar calls last month in Northwestern Ontario prompted the OPP's Fort Frances detachment to warn residents there to hang up before pressing any buttons on their phones.

Thunder Bay phone company files complaint

"We just want people to hang up, because we don’t know what this is about," Constable Caroline Spencer told the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal.

"Everybody in Ontario is getting those calls," Barry Elliott of the national police watchdog service Phone Busters told the Chronicle-Journal's Stephanie MacLellan.

The telemarketing blitz may well be legal, but Elliot acknowledged there's a possibility that pressing a number could open an outside line, resulting in long-distance charges.

Timo Hiiback, vice-president of marketing and business development at TBayTel, was doubtful that customers would find additional long-distance charges on their phone bills.

"If the call does re-route, it will likely re-route from their end," he told the Chronicle-Journal. "It's very unlikely that any downstream charges will be passed on to the customer."

TBayTel has nonetheless filed a complaint about the calls with a Miami-area Better Business Bureau.