866-367-3103

Phone Relay Scams

Our restaurant company has recently seen an increase in the number of phone relay scams in our shops.  We have done some research and spoke with a service representative from the relay service and she brought us up to speed on what we can do as a business to get these calls to stop.  First, we have to exercise caution because this is a legitimate service for anyone with a hearing disability.  Given the frequency of the fraudulent calls the advice from the service is to:
1.    Accept the call
2.    The “customer” will then ask to place a large order – typically for 200 people or more.  
3.    We need to ask them the following: “Do you intend to charge this to a credit card and have me wire you money?”  
4.    Once they respond yes we can terminate the call.  We can do this because of the pattern of fraud we have experienced which gives us the right to disconnect.  
5.    We should report the fraudulent call to 866.367.3103.  You will just need to provide them with your name and the shop phone number.
This has been an issue for a number of years.  Once the formal complaints were filed and reports increased, the FBI was contacted.  All of these calls are originating from Nigeria. Effective November 12th, 2009 the FCC will enact a change in how these phone relay calls are placed – they will now display the phone number of the caller on caller id instead of the TTY service number.  What we can do starting November 12th is that in the event a call gets through, we need to track the number on caller id and call 866-367-3103 and report it.  At that point the phone relay service will be able to block the number of origin.  If we don’t report the number the service will have no way of preventing that call getting through in the future.  The deadline of November 12th, 2009 is well known to the people conducting the fraud and we are likely to see an increase in these calls until then.

First caller was answering an ad I had in the paper regarding puppies. Everything seemed legitimate until I received the second call regarding the same ad. The first caller asked for me a puppy to be sent to OH and to send an email with pictures and they would send a check to me and have a representative pick the puppy up from their shipping company. That stilled seemed OK until I received the second e-mail from a completely separate person wanting the same exact thing yet they wanted it sent to NJ and they owned their own shipping company too. A coincidence? I think not. Thank God for this website! I was able to avert a scam!

I received a call from this number and they ordered 300 dinner plates...same as above. I emailed them as they requested and they wanted all my information ..including my cell number. I sent them another email requesting all their information before order could be processed.

I received a call from this number and they ordered 300 dinner plates...same as above. I emailed them as they requested and they wanted all my information ..including my cell number. I sent them another email requesting all their information before order could be processed.

I also recieved this type of call in which an order for 300 dinners to be picked up in my premises was to be placed. Payment was to be by credit card. I balked when the payment that was to made was plus payment for shipment company's services which I was to western union to another address. When I refused this the call was terminated.