Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: williams@cs.umass.edu Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Coin Station Fraud Using External Ground Message-ID: <6374@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 11 Apr 90 19:16:49 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Organization: COINS, UMass, Amherst Lines: 49 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 253, Message 2 of 9 In article <6122@accuvax.nwu.edu>, wb8foz@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (David Lesher) writes... >There was another type of fraud that seemed to be common a few years >ago in San Francisco. The {direct} victim, however was the user. >Someone was opening the one side of the line. Folks would come up, not >bother to listen for DTF, and drop in money. The powerless >one_arm_bandit would hold onto the money. After half a day or so, the >thief would come back, reconnect the pair, and collect all the money >spilling into the return chute. An even simpler version of this scam is used in many countries - just jamming the return path somehow. Broken phones that appear functional are favorite targets because none of the money is "lost" by the crook to a completed call, but in lots of places you don't get a dial tone until after you put in your money anyway. This scam is especially common in places that have lots of foot traffic and people in a hurry - train stations, info centers, etc. You can be on the lookout for such scams by noticing people hanging around waiting for a particular phone even when another phone becomes free. Another clue is when someone in a phone line lets you go ahead of them. These guys need to hang around to watch the phone and grab the money after every few attempted calls, otherwise some other con artist might beat them to it. In Amsterdam, it was a steady source of income for a bunch of train station regulars - from teenagers to old folks. The phone company keeps redesigning the phones to make it more difficult. When they made the return slot doors harder to jam, these guys started carrying screwdrivers and bars and just bent the doors to jam the return. When they changed the doors again to a cast material to prevent bending, they would jam the slot with gum or toilet/tissue paper coated with various disgusting and discouraging matter. The phone company recently replaced half the phones in the city with phones that only accept "phone cards". These are paper cards containing a magnetic strip with a number of pre-paid "call units" encoded on it. That way the phone company gets its money in advance and there's no money in the phone for the crooks. On the other hand, if you don't have a phone card and the adjacent regular phone is broken (very common), you're out of luck! Vandalizing phones seems to be a national sport in Holland - but that's another article. Trying to find a functional phone is a city can be very difficult. Often the best solution is to use a phone in a bar or hotel, but then you'll pay twice the normal rate. 8-( Leo c/o williams@cs.umass.edu