Urban legend or not?

[TheOtherVillainess]

My boss got an email that was sent to her from a friend with a story that was told to the sender by a friend who had it happen to a a friend.

Anyway the story went pretty much as follows:

Mrs. X recieved a phone call one day from a person claiming to be from *XYZ* phone company. She was told to press 9-0 # and then hang up. Suspicious, Mrs. X hung up without pressing 9-0# and called the phone company. The rep she reached at XYZ phone service said not to ever press 9-0# if she was asked to do so by somebody who claimed they were a rep of XYZ. The rep told her that pressing those buttons in that sequence would let whoever was on the other end of the line have full access to her phone and they could make long distance calls which would then show up on HER bill.

Being not so technically saavy, I don't understand how this could really be possible. So is this just another urban myth being passed around or can somebody (say an inmate in prison) actually do this?

TOV

 

[mark&sue]

I got an e:mail saying the same thing from one our bosses at work over here in the UK. This could of course be one of those urban myths.


Susan

 

[salmoneous]

You can look these sorts of things up on snopes.com . See http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/jailcall.asp .

For this one, in short, while it might be theoritcally possible to pull some sort of scam using # 9 0, the way it is outlined in the email you got isn't true.

 

[stinkerbelle]

sounds like a load of hooey to me

 

[Sparx]

It mgiht be talking about transfering your line to them. but that would just route your incomming calls to them, they would still pay for their own. sounds like an urban legend.

 

[MICKEY88]

here is your answer

 

[MICKEY88]

oops...didn't see the link in salmoneous ' reply

 

[2BigKIdz]

I worked at the switchboard for a hospital several years ago. We had a frequent caller, a man with an Indian accent who identified himself as "Dr. so and so" and to transfer him to extension 9000. This would have transferred him directly to the AT&T operator and he would have been able to make long distance calls on the hospital's dime (this has since been changed and would not work any longer as the switchboard has to dial toll free numbers to access the operators). When we would tell him we didn't have an extension 9000 he would insist that we did and to transfer him, we would just hang up on him. This went on for several months and usually occured in the evenings. He also tried this with the other local hospital because they would call us/we would call them when he started calling. This was in Charlottesville, VA and I see on Snopes that an incident remarkably similar happened in Richmond, about an hour away. I bet it was the same man.

 

[Servants of Evan]

I work at a convention center and this actually did happen to us four and a half years ago. Our receptionist recieved the "checking the lines, please dial 9-0." This happened several times over the course of a week. Fortunately for us, we are handled on the city's circuits and the multiple calls to Yemen (though each time to a different number) were enough to "red flag" the phone guys down in communications. They called my office and I got the pleasant task of heading down to the front office to inform the receptionist that her gullability just cost our facility well over one thousand dollars. Interestingly, even though it was over a grand and the calls were to Yemen, the local office of the FBI had no interest ...

Edited to add: And I'm rather certain my boss still has the original phone records in his office for those who would have any doubt. It lists which trunk line the call came in on, the time, the outgoing trunk, and the number called...