[Vision2020] Serious Question: Weird Phone Calls?

[Janesta]

.

On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 8:56 PM, Janesta <janesta at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sandra,
>
> If there is caller ID,  do a search for the number, as you would anything
> else. If it is a scam, chances are, someone has reported in on one of the
> many sites that report the phone number of the scam, as well as what kind of
> scam it is.
>
> Another suggestion - call the police in the town your loved one lives in,
> and ask them to do a well check. They will only be to happy to do one for
> you, AND you will know if your MIA is OK.
>
> Janesta
>
>
> On Sat, Mar 20, 2010 at 8:45 PM, Art Deco <deco at moscow.com> wrote:
>
>>  Everyone needs to be careful of this kind of scam.  Accepting a collect
>> call can sometimes cost huge amounts of money, especially if the scam
>> originates in the Virgin Islands, for example, $25.00 just for connecting.
>> The charge appears on your next phone bill, and it takes a very major hassle
>> to get the charges reversed.
>>
>> I hope the Saundra's MIA becomes un-MIA very soon.
>>
>> Saundra, is there a Caller Id with these calls?  In my experience, collect
>> calls have the Caller Id of a legitimate phone company in the name slot.
>>
>> W.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> *From:* Saundra Lund <v2020 at ssl.fastmail.fm>
>> *To:* vision2020 at moscow.com
>> *Sent:* Saturday, March 20, 2010 8:30 PM
>> *Subject:* [Vision2020] Serious Question: Weird Phone Calls?
>>
>> Has anyone else been getting weird phone calls recently?  Before anyone
>> makes any snarky answers, please understand that this is a very, very
>> upsetting situation my family for reasons I'll touch on below.
>>
>> The calls start with what I think is the kind of recording a collect call
>> would start with, but the recording never starts at the beginning, and the
>> part where the person would say their name is unintelligible.  The
>> recording
>> then says something like, "To accept this call, press one; to send a
>> voicemail, press 2" or something like that.
>>
>> We've gotten six of them in the last 24 hours or so.
>>
>> Now, the reason this is so upsetting to my family is because this week, I
>> found out a much loved family member is quasi-MIA.  Both of his phones
>> have
>> been disconnected, but in the hope that he might somehow have email
>> access,
>> I've been trying to reach him that way, and on Tuesday afternoon, I sent
>> him
>> an email basically begging him to call me collect if needed.
>>
>> So, when the first call came yesterday afternoon, I probably made a HUGE
>> mistake by pressing 1 to accept the call, which promptly went dead.  The
>> second call came immediately, and they guy wanted to know who I was (yeah,
>> right!).  The gist of what he told me was that he was calling back a phone
>> number that had showed up as a missed call on his Caller ID.  I explained
>> that no one from my number (I didn't tell him what number he'd reached or
>> my
>> name, of course) had called him, and he sounded as confused as I was
>> devastated that it wasn't my family member.
>>
>> We missed the third call early this AM, but the fourth came around 8:30
>> AM.
>> Thinking it was my missing family member, my husband pressed 1 to accept
>> the
>> call, and it was a woman who said her husband had missed a call on his
>> cell
>> from our number, and she was calling to find out who had called.  Again,
>> my
>> hubby didn't divulge any info, but the missed call supposedly was from
>> (208)
>> 991- and the last four digits of our phone number -- she said that she
>> just
>> hit the "return missed call" option or whatever, and that's how she was
>> connected to us.
>>
>> And, there have been two other calls like that today, but we're no longer
>> pressing 1 to accept the calls because this is just too weird and I'm now
>> suspicious that I've gotten us involved in some scam  :-(  I can only hope
>> that if my missing family member is able to call collect that we'll be
>> able
>> to tell the difference between that collect call and these other
>> mysterious
>> ones  :-(
>>
>> Does anyone have any idea what could be going on?  I tried searching
>> Google
>> & found a lot of scams, including collect calls originating from jails,
>> but
>> nothing quite like this.
>>
>> Of course this has to happen on a weekend when Verizon isn't available . .
>> .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Saundra Lund
>> Moscow, ID
>>
>> Every individual matters.  Every individual has a role to play.  Every
>> individual makes a difference.
>> ~ Jane Goodall
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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>
>
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