Call Forwarding Phone Scam

Tis the season for tricks and treats. This latest trick doesn't leave its victims laughing at any punchline. 

There's an old scam cycling back around, that if successful, would give scammers access to long distance and international calling at no charge to them. Those calls would instead get charged to the unsuspecting people who were conned into “helping out”.

Here’s an example: You receive an external call from someone posing as a police dispatcher claiming that an accident has occurred on the highway and the victim’s mobile phone had your as the emergency contact. You are urged to call the state patrol officer at the scene immediately by dialing a “phone number” sequence that begins with *72, *73, 72#, **21*, or another unusual pattern. By doing this, you could be forwarding your own incoming calls to that number, thus allowing the scammer to call their desired destination while you will be footing the bill.

A variation to this con might come from “the phone company,” asking you to dial a strange number sequence to help them test your line for a problem. 

The forwarding feature is widely available from phone companies, although the activation codes vary. On the district’s phones these dialing patterns are disabled; however, your mobile phone and home phone might be at risk, so avoid dialing any phone patterns that are unfamiliar to you.