Phone Scam

[drlove]

Here is the message that was on my answering machine tonight when I got home from work:

(Computer generated) " Hi, this is Brenda. you've been rewarded 1201 travel reward points. Please press "0" to claim your reward. The first 100 lucky callers will also receive a luxurious vacation at a five star resort in Mexico. This call is free, so please press "0" to claim your reward."

Yeah, right - go scam some other sucker.

 

[tboy]

Well, if you press 0 while retrieving your messages doesn't that just beep and not do anything? I guess you'd have had to press 0 while listening to the original message. Plus 1200 reward miles? Well, that's not much of a prize.

I bet this is a timeshare thing, not a scam. I've been offerred free stays at resorts all over the carribean but it doesn't include airfare and you have to listen to a salespitch to claim your prize....

 

[LancsLad]

There was one of these scams awhile ago, where if you pressed their number as indicated you were routed to an autodialer that got you a nice long distance charge from one of those island states.

 

[Incall]

never ever reply to these. I have read the same it could direct you to a long distance charges and you will become responsible to those charges.

 

[KBear]

What does pressing "0" do? Just curious.

 

[l69norm]

What does pressing "0" do? Just curious.

It's a telemarketing scam. They use banks of automated dialers. When you press "9" or "0", you get routed to the "boiler room" where they try to sell you a scam vacation. The guy in the boiler room gets paid by commission, so he's going to do whatever it takes to get your credit card number.

http://boakes.org/ameri-scam/all-comments/

"My son answered the phone today and when he gave it to me i could only hear “dial 9 to claim your prize”. I was curious so I dialled 9 and got connected to a woman calling herself Carla. She was quite articulate and went on and on about the price I had won. I had a bell ringing “scam” in the back of my head from the beginning of the conversation and at least i was suspicious that I hadnt really won anything and that I probably had to pay something to get it and sure enough, to claim the vacation that had a value of 2100 euros I had to pay 800 euros.

When she said that to claim the prize I had to pay the 800 right there and then on the phone by telling them my VISA number I said I wasnt interested. She told me to hold the line and was probably setting me over to some other scammer to sweat talk me or convince me, but I just hung up - not only did the call take forever, but I had my babygirls dirty nappy to take hand of and I had realized it was nothing but a scam all the way through. So bye bye Carla. I’m happy that I didnt let myself get scammed.

I hope those of you that did get scammed manages to get your money back and that you are able to get these people shut down.

The url I was given today was http://www.bestusavacations.com

# Jase Says:

I just won a Florida holiday! It sounded too good to be true so I didn’t press 9. As a rule, I don’t do business with any company that cold calls me."