I got taken like a rookie as we left for vacation. The phone rang during our last-minute rushing around before the drive to the airport, and when I picked it up I heard a computer-generated voice: "This is the AT&T long-distance operator. You have a collect call from ['Take the call, Nords!']. If you choose to accept the call then say 'Accept' or push * to blah blah blah:"
The voice recording sounded like my wife's uncle, who's in his 70s and still refuses to grow up, so it was all too easy to believe that he'd be panicky and calling collect from a jail cell. I asked "Who is this?" and the same person said "It's me, please accept so you can help me!!" During this conversation the "AT&T operator" was still yammering away in the background about pushing numbers so I said "Accept!"
Of course it was a scam. The caller wasn't Uncle Fred, it was a guy with the same Bronx accent who wanted to know "where to send my check". After about 20 seconds I said goodbye & hung up. Neither AT&T nor our local phone company had any record of the call (their computer records don't update that fast) and no one was interested in filing complaints or challenging phone charges. I filed the whole thing under "later" and got to the airport.
After a little research I realized that if I'd followed the "operator" instructions to push phone buttons then I would've gotten into a variation of the classic call-forwarding scam (http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/jailcall.asp and http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/forward.asp). I don't think that computer-generated phone voice was really the AT&T operator after all. Good thing our kid didn't answer the phone. Good thing I didn't leave our phone at someone else's disposal during our two-week vacation...
Of course our latest phone bill has a usage charge of $7.40 plus $1.21 in taxes & tolls for 1 minute of "AT&T Oper Serv". As I'm sure the operators would gleefully point out, after all I did accept the call. While I could kick up a fuss about the charge, and while I have plenty of free ER time to waste on AT&T and Hawaiian Telcom, I think that $8.61 is comparitively cheap tuition at the School of Experience for Stupid People and I'd rather get on with my life.
Unless the trouble is just beginning and more charges are coming down the pipeline. Anyone know of a more effective way to dispute this charge? Is there anywhere else I can file a complaint or block this type of call?
The voice recording sounded like my wife's uncle, who's in his 70s and still refuses to grow up, so it was all too easy to believe that he'd be panicky and calling collect from a jail cell. I asked "Who is this?" and the same person said "It's me, please accept so you can help me!!" During this conversation the "AT&T operator" was still yammering away in the background about pushing numbers so I said "Accept!"
Of course it was a scam. The caller wasn't Uncle Fred, it was a guy with the same Bronx accent who wanted to know "where to send my check". After about 20 seconds I said goodbye & hung up. Neither AT&T nor our local phone company had any record of the call (their computer records don't update that fast) and no one was interested in filing complaints or challenging phone charges. I filed the whole thing under "later" and got to the airport.
After a little research I realized that if I'd followed the "operator" instructions to push phone buttons then I would've gotten into a variation of the classic call-forwarding scam (http://www.snopes.com/fraud/telephone/jailcall.asp and http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/scams/forward.asp). I don't think that computer-generated phone voice was really the AT&T operator after all. Good thing our kid didn't answer the phone. Good thing I didn't leave our phone at someone else's disposal during our two-week vacation...
Of course our latest phone bill has a usage charge of $7.40 plus $1.21 in taxes & tolls for 1 minute of "AT&T Oper Serv". As I'm sure the operators would gleefully point out, after all I did accept the call. While I could kick up a fuss about the charge, and while I have plenty of free ER time to waste on AT&T and Hawaiian Telcom, I think that $8.61 is comparitively cheap tuition at the School of Experience for Stupid People and I'd rather get on with my life.
Unless the trouble is just beginning and more charges are coming down the pipeline. Anyone know of a more effective way to dispute this charge? Is there anywhere else I can file a complaint or block this type of call?