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I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

theatlantic.com

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Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#11

Post by jasonkostempski »

wpietri wrote: post #3

Long ago I did some contract coding for a company that processed donations via credit card. To my amazement, we had to watch out for people trying to donate small amounts to the Red Cross. Why? Because people with a list of possibly-valid credit card numbers would use small donations to brand-name charities as a way of validating credit cards. It made me long for some sort of professional association that kept track…

Should that have really been your concern? If every company that processes cards has to be fraud detecting experts, then they CC system is totally broken.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#13

Post by acveilleux »

The "free" phone conference service work in a somewhat similar way. There's a fee charged for long distance call even in the US/Canada. The fee is low enough that most people now get free long distance.

The free phone conference services are terminated at tiny little telcos that charge a much higher than normal fee for a north american long distance and the fee is split between the conference service operator and the telco (which may or may not be the same.)

Some of these services cannot be dialed via some VOIP providers (like Google Talk) for that reason.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#14

Post by gcb0 »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #11
wpietri wrote: post #3

Long ago I did some contract coding for a company that processed donations via credit card. To my amazement, we had to watch out for people trying to donate small amounts to the Red Cross. Why? Because people with a list of possibly-valid credit card numbers would use small donations to brand-name charities as a way of validating credit cards. It made me long for some sort of professional association that kept track…

Should that have really been your concern? If every company that processes cards has to be fraud detecting experts, then they CC system is totally broken.

it is.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#15

Post by ikeboy »

Sounds like the solutions needs to be orders of magnitude larger fines than the amount that would be gained. If each individual user is only losing $1-3, they won't or can't fight it, and the company also won't in many cases. If the minimum payout/fine for such a scam was, say, $100 per occurrence and that was written into all the contracts, there'd be enough incentive at every stage for companies to clean up their act.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#16

Post by ChristianBundy »

Guest98123 wrote: post #7

I have a related story. I was in North America, looking for an apartment in Australia. At the time I'd buy phone cards for long distance calls, and they'd always work fine. So, I used the phone card, and tried to call someone about an apartment that looked great. According to the advertisement, it was a woman that owned the apartment and she had an extra bedroom she was renting. I called, and a man answered. It went…

Have you heard of the "It's Lenny" bot?

https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/

It's meant to keep telemarketers on the phone and waste their time, but it sounds like someone was using something similar for international phone fraud.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#17

Post by Guest98123 »

brianwawok wrote: post #10
Guest98123 wrote: post #7

I have a related story. I was in North America, looking for an apartment in Australia. At the time I'd buy phone cards for long distance calls, and they'd always work fine. So, I used the phone card, and tried to call someone about an apartment that looked great. According to the advertisement, it was a woman that owned the apartment and she had an extra bedroom she was renting. I called, and a man answered. It went…

That is weird. Did you ever see a charge from the call? Or I guess if it was a prepaid card, the minutes just drained faster?

Yep, it was a cheap prepaid card from an Asian grocery store, so it just deducted the connection fee + minutes. I can't remember the cost, but it was likely less than a dollar for the call. I guess if you're hijacking hundreds of calls an hour though, it's a big business.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#18

Post by pavel_lishin »

Guest98123 wrote: post #7

I have a related story. I was in North America, looking for an apartment in Australia. At the time I'd buy phone cards for long distance calls, and they'd always work fine. So, I used the phone card, and tried to call someone about an apartment that looked great. According to the advertisement, it was a woman that owned the apartment and she had an extra bedroom she was renting. I called, and a man answered. It went…

I wonder if they've done any research on what sort of recording keeps people on the line the longest.

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#19

Post by Declanomous »

acveilleux wrote: post #13

The "free" phone conference service work in a somewhat similar way. There's a fee charged for long distance call even in the US/Canada. The fee is low enough that most people now get free long distance. The free phone conference services are terminated at tiny little telcos that charge a much higher than normal fee for a north american long distance and the fee is split between the conference service operator and the…

>Some of these services cannot be dialed via some VOIP providers (like Google Talk) for that reason.

I always knew this was the case, but I was never really bothered by it. Both the law (see intercarrier compensation[1]) and the subsequent ban make sense.

However I've recently run it to a rash of people who I can't call because my carrier and Google Voice block their numbers. Each of them has a Puerto Rican area code. They are all cell phone numbers, they all live in Chicago like me, but I can't call or text them because their phone number is Puerto Rican. It doesn't make any sense, because Puerto Rico is a part of the United States, we are both in the US, and we each ostensibly have US phone numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996

Re: I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud

#20

Post by razakel »

Guest98123 wrote: post #17
brianwawok wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is weird. Did you ever see a charge from the call? Or I guess if it was a prepaid card, the minutes just drained faster?

Yep, it was a cheap prepaid card from an Asian grocery store, so it just deducted the connection fee + minutes. I can't remember the cost, but it was likely less than a dollar for the call. I guess if you're hijacking hundreds of calls an hour though, it's a big business.

>Yep, it was a cheap prepaid card from an Asian grocery store, so it just deducted the connection fee + minutes. I can't remember the cost, but it was likely less than a dollar for the call. I guess if you're hijacking hundreds of calls an hour though, it's a big business.

I wonder how dodgy these phone card companies actually are. You could target a specific demographic and then mess with any calls to places they're unlikely to dial.

Say you were doing it and selling the cards in British corner shops. The customers are most likely going to be calling Eastern Europe and South Asia. They're probably not going to be making many calls to the US, so you can mess with some percentage of those.

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