Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!uwm.edu!lll-winken!telecom-request From: hcliff@wybbs.mi.org (Cliff Helsel) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: 900 Number Fraud on My Line Message-ID: Date: 14 May 91 23:46:28 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: TELECOM Digest Lines: 24 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 363, Message 6 of 10 This may be of interest to persons living in an apartment complex. Last month I opened my phone bill and found a new amount due of over 300 dollars. The calls that contributed to this large amount were mainly calls to 900 numbers. I believe there were eight or so calls at 35 dollars a crack. The first thing I did was to contact the apartment complex manager and find out whether I had any type of service performed on the dates (span of two days) that the calls were made. No service had been performed so that pretty much ruled out a dishonest service person. I contacted the phone companies (local, AT&T, Sprint, MCI) and had them remove the calls from my bill. They agreed to do this as long as I put 900 blocker on my phone. I guess what happened was that a person was going around to the back of the apartment buildings and tapping into the "boxes" that had all the wiring for the apartment phones and placing calls to 900 numbers. I can just picture some guy in a trench coat holding a telephone with alligator clips :-) anyway, I just thought it was interesting. Cliff Helsle hcliff@wybbs.mi.org or hcliff@wybbs.UUCP