Area Code 809 phone scam
The original e-mail that came to us was so poorly written that I will try and recap here. What happens is someone calls and leaves an urgent message, usually something about a family member, and asks you to call a phone number beginning with an 809 area code.Once the call is made, the people pulling the scam try and keep you, the caller, on the line as long as possible. Apparently it is a toll number and charges are added up per minute. Because these calls are to The Bahamas, they are not subject to US regulations and are hard, if not impossible to get reversed.
We haven't heard of anyone being burned by a scam like this, but it certainly seemed plausible. We checked with Snopes, a popular urban myth debunker, to see if this report is true, and they verify that it is a known fraud from 2000, but that only a few people have been taken in by it, and only for small amounts.
- Mick Orton
posted by SFResidence.com @ 6:01 PM
1 Comments:
Re: "Because these calls are to The Bahamas".
The 809 area code is NOT the Bahamas, which are area code 242. Neither is it the British Virgin Islands, which is area code 284. Area code 809 is the Dominican Republic, possibly with a few lines extended across the border into Haiti (country code 509).
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