Fergie's Tech Blog

Canada: Telus Warns of Phone Scam

Via The Globe and Mail.

Vancouver-based Telus estimates that tens of thousands of consumers and businesses across Canada have recently received fraudulent automated phone calls informing them that they have won a prize. The recorded announcement instructs the listener to press 9, 0, # to claim their prize.

Pressing that sequence of keys on many business switchboards will transfer the incoming call to an outbound line, allowing fraudsters to pick up the line and make expensive overseas long distance calls at the business' expense.

Residential telephone lines are not vulnerable to this phone scam, Telus says. This scam can succeed only if the recipient of the automated call is at a business or commercial switchboard.

posted by Fergie @ 5/11/2006 10:28:00 AM