Document text
Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY Don�t call that 809 number; it�s a scam There always have been scams aimed at seniors. Confidence men long ago found that people in their 80s and 90s have, for the most part, grown more trusting of strangers than they were a couple of decades earlier. Now there is a new scam that doesn�t directly depend on the client�s gullibility. Rather, something as simple as dialing a phone number can get you into deep trouble. Jacqueline Zimmer, director of the Area Agency on Aging in Salem, has distributed a press release warning seniors and others not to respond to e-mails, phone calls or Web pages that tell you to call a number with the prefix of 809. The way seniors get entangled with such a scam is by receiving a phone call, an e-mail or a pager message saying that a family member has been arrested, or they have won a valuable prize, or some such inducement. In each case, they are asked to dial an 809 number. Since there are so many new prefixes, people think nothing of dialing a different one. In reality, they have just dialed themselves into the poor house, so to speak. That prefix works just like a 900 pay-per-call number in the states, except that the charge has been outrageously inflated. The going rate to call 809 is � are you ready � $2,425 per minute! And it is rare to only be charged the minute rate. Most of the time, a 10-minute tape is played at the beginning, and the voice holds your attention with some sort of spiel about how much money you are going to make. In this country, 900 numbers are required to notify clients at the beginning that they will be charged, what the rate is, and that the company provides a time period in which the call can be terminated without being charged. Using 900-call blocking, which is readily available in the United States, does not block other prefixes, such as 809. We are told that the average length of a call to the 809 prefix is 10 minutes. Thus the innocent target of the scam can find a line item on the next phone bill of $24,100! It is important to prevent becoming a victim of this scam, since trying to fight the charges afterwards can become a real nightmare. You see, you did actually make the call. If you complain, both your local phone company and your long distance carrier will not want to get involved. They will likely tell you that they are simply providing the billing for a foreign company. The foreign company will simply say it has done nothing wrong. Actually, almost every little island in the Caribbean has its own area code, and many of them have instituted similar scams. This one is just the most outrageous. You don�t have to be poor to be the victim of some sort of scam. Back in March of this year, a California man was charged in Eugene of defrauding nine elderly RV owners of more than $300,000 after promising to buy their motor homes. He did actually buy six motor homes from RV owners in McMinnville, Sunriver, Roseburg, Hillsboro, Medford and Bend from August 1996 to December 1999. Each of the owners told investigators that the culprit answered the ads they placed offering their RVs for sale. The man then flashed a lot of money, put a small amount down, and promised to make payments, with interest, on the balance. During negotiations, he convinced each victim that he made a lot of money by fighting forest fires for the government, or by leasing fire equipment to the government. Then he talked the RV owners into signing over the titles of motor homes as part of the initial transaction. Having the title to the RVs allowed the man to then sell each motor home for less money than he had offered the owner for it. He made several payments to each victim, and then informed them that he had fallen on hard times. He wasn�t too bright. And finally, last year the Oregon Attorney General�s Office sued a Florida jewelry company for combining a sweepstakes entry with its mail-order form. The Attorney General�s Office accused the company of trying to confuse and mislead the public, particularly senior citizens. But for every company closed down, it seems there are a dozen waiting to take its place. Try your best not to be a target for them. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.