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Press Release
June 21, 2007
Deputy Chief Gremo
Streamwood Police Department
*72 Phone Scam
The
Streamwood Police Department has taken several reports over
the past few weeks of a phone scam that has been occurring
throughout the northern suburbs.
The scam involved citizens’ being duped into having
their calls forwarded to another number so criminals can
utilize the phone service at the citizen’s expense.
AT&T describes the scam as follows:
Star-7-2,
billing back to you:
You receive a call from a stranger posing as a telephone
technician or telling you that he has been arrested for
driving with a suspended license and is in jail — or is in a
situation that requires your immediate help. "I need to
reach my wife and tell her what happened so she can pick up
our two kids. Would you dial *72 and then her number?"
Star-7-2 is a custom feature for call forwarding. When the
customer dials *72 followed by a telephone number, it
activates the call forwarding feature causing all your
incoming calls to ring at another number. At the end of the
other line — whether calls have been forwarded to a
landline, a cell phone or a payphone — the original caller's
partner-in-crime is able to accept all collect and third-party
calls, while telling your own legitimate callers that they
have the wrong number. You get billed for all calls made
because your number is the one from which they are forwarded.
This ingenious scam, which even overrides cell phones
inability to get collect calls, may go on for several days
before you become aware it has occurred.
If
a citizen believes that he has just fallen victim to this
scam, he can press *73, depending on the service provider, to
turn off the call forwarding. Any suspicious calls of this
nature should be reported to the police department.
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Village of
Streamwood
301 E. Irving Park Road
Streamwood, IL 60107-3096
(630) 736-3800 |
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04/09/08 .
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