"Fat Finger Dialing" Scam

News

A simple mistake in dialing - or writing down - a phone number can be costly. The type of con it plays into is called a "fat finger dialing" scam. Consumers make a mistake dialing a number and end up connected to someone who leads them down a rip-off path.

Almost any frequently called number is likely to be a target for the "fat finger" approach. Take the national number for the Do Not Call list run by the Federal Trade Commission. The correct number is (888) 382-1222. But if you are off by just one digit, you can end up calling a number that tells you the number has been changed. The number it directs you to call will charge you $5.49 plus an "administrative recovery fee," for "a new national directory assistance service."

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Comments

  • +1
    Paul
    I follow how the scam works, but wouldn't this prove costly to the scam artist, too?  For instance, I expect that the toll-free lines themselves must incur set-up fees, correct?  If that's the case, I would also expect that  one will want to cover all bases and have several lines in place to support the infrastructure afterwards (i.e. re-directed to toll-charge line).

    Seems like a lot of investment dollars, in hopes that many people mis-dial a phone number.  I can understand why Google would want to register as many possible mis-spelt versions of their company's domain name, but Google also has the visitor base and capital resources to warrant these extra costs.
  • 0
    Jane
    If they do it, it must be profitable. I don't know about this line of "business" but on the internet people are making millions by buying misspelled domains and placing advertisements. Clearly it is profitable because they also have to pay domain fees, hosting fees, and manage the sites. Just take a recent example with UTube.com. It's an established business that also gets a substantial amount of traffic from users that type utube instead of youtube. At first they sued the video hosting company but now they are just showing banners and making good money from this mistype.
  • 0
    Clay
    Actually 800 numbers are quite inexpensive and costs for calls can be as low as 2 cents/minute.  At $5.49, they would only need 3-4 calls to pay for the 800 number.
  • 0
    James
    The way to put an end to such scams is with a cane.  500 lashes across the back will make would be crooks think twice in the future.  But you folks would be out of a job, right?
  • 0
    Me_V2
    Well at least this is one that is easy to deal with. If you get one of these bogus items on your phone bill call (Write your telco) and tell them that you refuse to pay the item and you want it removed from your bill. They may give you grief and not want to do it (because they keep a percentage for doing the billing) but they will. If they by chance don't file a report with the Federal Trade Commission. They will pay a $5000.00 fine for  not fulfilling your request.

    They cannot turn your service off for none payment of regulated services.

    The company doing the billing then has to do there own billing which is easier to trace and prosecute. Most likely they will ignore the bill.
  • 0
    Jimbo
    Set up a 800 through a voip service- $2.00 US a month, plus $0.20 to $0.60 per minute. 1000% profit per 1 minute call is profitable, indeed.
  • 0
    Drew
    Great ideas, thank you all.  I've been looking for augmentation to my income.
  • 0
    hoop
    @ drew

    My thoughts exactly -  i could think of lots of great ways to augment my income as well now reading this ..  especially targeting the mis-dials on phone #s the are 1800 SPELL OUT with 1800 SPELL 0UT and the like.

    -rolls eyes-

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