473-520-9772

Called both mine & husband at 3:56am. 1 ring

I got a call from a similar number it was like 9773 instead of 9772. Area code and the 520 part were still the same. I tried calling back and said "hello" a couple times but no body responded, so I simply hung up.

I got called tonight also, I thought it was someone getting beaten when I called back. If I miss a call on my phone I usually call the number back because it could be something important!

>>> If I miss a call on my phone I usually call the number back because it could be something important! <<<

Then you are, indeed, precisely the kind of sucker these scammers are looking for.

473 "AREA CODE" WARNING -- DO NOT RETURN DIAL ONE RING CALLS RECEIVED FROM AREA CODE 473 !!!!!!

In the current variant of this scam, the caller doesn't have any intention of talking to you. All the scammer wants is for you to get upset enough about the late night call that you return the call, never even noticing that it is from a foreign country outside the reach of US or Canadian laws. When you return the call (at international rates), there may also be a big surcharge added to your phone bill that gets passed along to the scammer.

What appears to have been the original version of the scam surfaced about 11 years ago in Japan and is known as the "Wangiri scam:"

From Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2002/08/21/n ... r/#.Ur2543-9KSN

From the Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/1367988

A few U.S. news organizations, but not many, have picked up on this latest variant:

KPVI, Pocatello, ID TV report on Grenada phone scam
http://youtu.be/eSp9tY1gBW8

From Toledo News Now
http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/23695832/b ... huge-phone-bill

I don't think this problem is limited to or has anything to do with Verizon.  The same problem has been reported on other carriers, I believe, but Verizon Wireless appears to be the biggest carrier, so they get the most calls.  Verizon has a discussion board set up with at least one thread concerning "473" calls:

https://community.verizonwireless.com/message/1035009

It appears that at least Verizon is devoting some resources to stop these callers or at least refund some or all of the charges for people who call these numbers.  How long that will last is known only to Verizon, and even they may not have decided at this point.  Other carriers may also be doing the same.  They all want to avoid bad publicity that may drive away customers, of course.

At least one early report on 800notes.com, if taken at face value, asserted that a charge of $100.00 was made to a phone bill for calling back for 15 seconds.  Even regular calls to 473 numbers are billed at upwards of $1.80 per minute by most cell phone carriers, even on so-called "unlimited" phone plans, unless you have paid extra for an international dialing plan.  It may be that the scammers get a cut of this money for every international call they receive.

That's why either:
(1) you can't return the phone call, because even though you would otherwise be able to dial it like an ordinary long distance number, you phone company has a restriction on your placing international calls (which these are).  At least some pre-paid cell phone services work this way.  If this case applies to you, consider yourself lucky. Or,
(2) when you call back and get through, the operator of the 473 phone number tries to keep you on hold for as long as possible to run up your phone bill and their profits.

The scammers don't have to be associated with recent security breaches, such as the recent one at Target stores.  (In fact, many of the victims of this scam say that they either don't shop at Target or did not shop there during the period of the known security breach.)  All the scammers have to do is randomly dial a lot of telephone numbers in already-assigned area codes. And they must be dialing a LOT of them based on the complaints logged to 800notes.

It probably doesn't cost them anything to dial you, either, if the called party (you) doesn't pick up the call before they hang up. It only takes a small percentage of angry and/or curious people calling back for them to make a lot of money. They don't even have to pay for real people to operate a call center -- it's all done by machines, outside the reach of US and Canadian law enforcement.

So do yourself a favor and don't call these scammers back.  And you'll also be doing us all a favor, because they wouldn't call anyone at all if there weren't so many people who fell for this scam.

I called back twice because I have no idea what it was. HELP MY PHONE BILL

I got a call from them last night just answered it and said hello then didn't know what I heard then call ended.

I got a call from this number last night and not knowing who/what it was I called it back (473)520-9781 from Grenada.

From what I've read on a other post about these calls it racks up charges from $3-$5 and higher.

>on the phone with verzin
Paulette Verzin? cool!

Unwanted call.

Unwanted #

4 phones  one verizon account, I know 2  cell phones got it. Mine was a missed call at 10:51 pm.  My 14 yr old son got a call from the same number. He answered. Thank heavans I was sitting right by him,
He answered it. Said hello a few times. Then got a hey or a hi back and they hung up. He also said it was a female voice and lots of weird noises.    

Received calls from the number on both mine and my wife's cell phones but we didn't answer, and my t-mobile phone identified it as Grenada when I went back to look for the number that called.  I then searched for the number in google and found this site before we called it back.

I had an unwanted call from 473-520-9772! Don't answer it ! It is from Grenada...

I got a call like this too. The number that came up on my phone was 473-520-9784.

There is something to be said about "how you can't fix stupid!" But how about this company and their websites having a problem?  Someone has hacked or their call centers have had a breakdown or they're harassing and abusing the phones of debtors? https://www.bancorpsouth.com/  http://www.linkedin.com/company/bancorpsouth http://www.bbb.org/mississippi/business-revie ... o-ms-212140580/   BBB does not have sufficient background information on this business.

Forgot to add DO NOT CALL ANY 473 NUMBER BACK THEY WILL RIP YOU OFF! see message from  ANonieMouse previous page.. This is a SCAM, SCAM, SCAM !

Yep got a call 473-520-9773. Saw id said Grenada and never picked it up.

So if it was only 5 seconds would they still charge

You can "help your phone bill" by not returning calls from total strangers. Pleading the same thing here twice in the same minute isn't helping others fight this problem, either.