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Telephone Company Agent Scam
An old type of telephone scam has come back into use by scammers. Many people are unfamiliar with the intricasies of their telephone companies' billing programs and many have had the experience of dealing with extra fees that find their way onto our bills. This provides the perfect base for the scam to work. A scammer, posing as an employee of the victim's telephone company, calls the victim requesting resolution of an outstanding fee on the victim's phone bill or the victim's telephone access will be terminated.
Generally, the 'fee' will be smaller amounts like $50 to $100. To encourage the victim to pay, the scammer states that the fee for re-establishing the line is much more. If a victim refuses to believe the scammer's ploy, he claims he can shut off your phone to provide proof. Your normal phone company would not go to such lengths to prove their identity. They would most likely be able to reference your account information and/or send you written notice of unpaid fees. They would not be calling you by phone until said account had gone into collections.
What the scammer does to convince his victims of his 'authority' over the telephone line is to request the victim hang up and attempt to dial a number. What the scammer doesn't mention is how easy it is to engage a mute feature. The victim then attempts to dial out, but because the call initiator must hang up before that line is no longer busy, the victim hears no dial tone, cannot call out and, by all appearances, has had his line disabled. The scammer can hear the victim the entire time and, as soon as the victim stops their attempts to dial and hangs up, the scammer hangs up and calls back.
Due to the seeming 'proof' provided by the scammer, everything seems to be legitimate and it often results in the victim losing their hard-earned money. Always be wary of the claims of authority people make over the phone. It is all too easy to assume they are what they say they are, but they may very well be 'phone'-y.