Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Overseas Crooks Abuse TTY Phone Service

Posted by michael on Fri Apr 09, 2004 02:14 PM
from the there-are-no-words dept.
Rick Zeman writes "The Arizona Daily Star is reporting on how 419 scammers and credit card thieves are abusing the US' TTY service which enables hearing-impaired citizens to make phone calls with the help of an intermediary operator. 'The callers try to use stolen credit-card numbers to make big purchases of merchandise from American companies. The operators often suspect fraud, but they can't just hang up. Federal rules require them to make the calls and keep the contents strictly confidential.' Yes, Virginia, they have no shame...."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold:
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • No authentication leads to abuse... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster (625375) * on Friday April 09 2004, @02:16PM (#8818730)
    Anything that's totally given away for free meant to help a certain segment of society should at least seek proof that the person taking advantage of the service is a member of that segment of society.

    No government in the USA hands out handcapped parking permits to everyone who asks. There's a documentation process to certify that one is entitled to it. Sure, that process sometimes gets fooled into giving a permit to somebody not entitled to it, but as least there's a paper trail created by such a fraud that can be followed once it is discovered.

    Free TTY services be allowed to issue usernames and passwords to their customers, keep text logs of the conversations, and able to revoke the access of those who abuse their accounts. Basically, the laws that are requiring them to be open are also regulating this service to its death. This needs to be fixed quick.
  • What a horrible job. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Allen Zadr (767458) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <rdaZ.nellA>> on Friday April 09 2004, @02:17PM (#8818755)
    (Last Journal: Sunday November 12 2006, @07:08PM)

    Let's describe the job of a Relay Operator:
    No matter what the phone call, or what the content of that phone call is, the Relay Operator must, by law continue the conversation.

    When a deaf person is feeling lonely they might decide to call a phone entertainment line, man or woman, having to type this in, and say what the deaf person types.

    Like the job of a relay operator isn't bad enough, now the operators have to deal with Nigerian poor grammer while perpetrating fraud.

    • Re:What a horrible job. (Score:4, Informative)

      by JanneM (7445) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:30PM (#8818922)
      (http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/)
      Um, yes. By law, and by the very job specification they had when applying, they do have to do this. It's not like it's a huge surprise, right: "Oh mai gahd! A human wants to talk about sex! With a member of the opposite gender!!"

      Assistants to disabled people have dealt with this for a long time; there is even accepted codes of conduct for various situations (basically, assistants should have a similar moral outlook as their bosses, or they will likely not be able to work together over time).

      [ Parent ]
    • Re:What a horrible job. (Score:5, Informative)

      by ShortSpecialBus (236232) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:32PM (#8818955)
      (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~stefan)
      I worked as a relay operator for about 9 months before I quit because it was ridiculous.

      Mind you, this wasn't normal tty relay. This was IP-Relay, which allows anyone with a computer to use it as a tty basically.

      Because I've signed NDA's and don't really want to break federal law, I can't go into detail about any calls, but I think I can safely say that what the article describes is pretty accurate.

      Also, As for sex lines, that's not too common with IP-Relay. What is common though is bored high school kids calling each other and being very creative with what they make you say/type.

      It's funny for a while, and not that bad of a job, but a lot of it is tedious, dull, and annoying (Touchtone menus...AARGH).
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:What a horrible job. by Just Some Guy (Score:2) Friday April 09 2004, @03:30PM
    • Re:What a horrible job. by Dimensio (Score:2) Friday April 09 2004, @05:32PM
    • Re:What a horrible job. by Stray7Xi (Score:2) Saturday April 10 2004, @04:55PM
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by mindless4210 (768563) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:17PM (#8818758)
    (http://www.dailywireless.com/ | Last Journal: Friday April 09 2004, @09:00PM)
    Of course scammers are going to find loopholes to do what they want. Although it's shocking to me that they're able to do it still... how long do you think that will last for?
  • No different (Score:3, Insightful)

    by JanneM (7445) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:19PM (#8818780)
    (http://janneinosaka.blogspot.com/)
    How is this different from the same scammers calling people with the same pitch?

    I would be a lot more worried about the idea of an outside party filtering my incoming calls without any control from me.

    More specifically, it is hard to have fun with phone salesmen or religious door-knockers once they learn to avoid you. :)

  • We've gotten this (Score:5, Informative)

    by bravehamster (44836) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:19PM (#8818783)
    (http://www.abrocomputers.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday February 19 2004, @02:43AM)
    At the computer shop I run we've literally recieved hundreds of these phone calls. The conversation typically goes like this (but relayed, so it takes forever)

    Do you sell laptops?
    No, we don't sell any laptops.
    How about desktops?
    Yes, we do desktops.
    Will you ship overseas?
    No, no overseas shipments.
    Ok..ok...how about Los Angeles.
    We can do that.
    Ok, I have credit card, I can pay now.
    We'd need some sort of verification that you are the cardholder.

    The conversation goes downhill from there. The first few times we took it seriously, but since then we've refused to take relay calls. If we hear the operator say "This is a relay call" we interrupt and say "Sorry, we don't take relay calls" and then HANG UP. If you don't hang up, the operator will say "hold" while they type out the message and then wait for a response. Waste..of...goddamn...time. Slamming the reciever down helps. If there's any people who genuinely use the service...sorry, we just can't afford to spend hours wading through these phone calls to get to you.

    • Re:We've gotten this by requim (Score:1) Friday April 09 2004, @02:27PM
    • Re:We've gotten this by Samhailt (Score:1) Friday April 09 2004, @02:31PM
    • Yes, Hang up! (Score:4, Informative)

      by ShortSpecialBus (236232) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:36PM (#8819008)
      (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~stefan)
      If you don't want to take the call, the best thing you can do is hang up. It saves the operator (me at one time) a lot of time and frustration.

      If the person calls back 2 or 3 times, you might want to take the call, however. The scammers/people who aren't who they say they are won't have you do that. The real deaf people are used to that, so they have you call back a few times in hopes to get a different person who will take the call, or give you a chance to convince the person to talk.

      But if you still have no intention of taking the call, just hang up, saying as little as possible.

      It saves the operators a lot of trouble.
      [ Parent ]
    • you are not alone by Rev.LoveJoy (Score:2) Friday April 09 2004, @02:40PM
    • Re:We've gotten this (Score:4, Funny)

      by John_Sauter (595980) <J_Sauter@Empire.Net> on Friday April 09 2004, @02:42PM (#8819090)
      I have gotten many such calls at my little computer shop. Sometimes I get into a sympathetic conversation with the operator, who is perfectly willing to tell me the caller is probably a fraud.

      I don't sell laptops and I don't ship overseas. If the caller asks why, I say that I am a retail store and prefer that my customers pick up their merchandise in person. My final defense, which I haven't had to use yet, is to say that I only sell the Commodore Amiga.
      John Sauter (J_Sauter@Empire.Net)

      [ Parent ]
      • Re:We've gotten this (Score:5, Informative)

        by ShortSpecialBus (236232) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:47PM (#8819142)
        (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~stefan)
        They could be fired/jailed for that. When I worked as a Relay Operator, the main things stressed were Confidentiality and Transparency. You are NEVER NEVER allowed to talk to either end. Your job is a telephone line. You can't answer questions, you can't do anything. If you get asked questions, you basically have to tell the person that you are a telephone line and don't know anything, and to ask the person who they are talking to. Or my favorite thing to do was just type the questions that they asked me to the TTY user.
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:We've gotten this by DarkBlackFox (Score:2) Friday April 09 2004, @04:59PM
    • Re:We've gotten this (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jeff DeMaagd (2015) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:47PM (#8819144)
      (http://www.demaagd.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 27 2002, @06:53PM)
      If there's any people who genuinely use the service...sorry, we just can't afford to spend hours wading through these phone calls to get to you.

      Thankfully, legitimate deaf people can use the internet to make their orders, a lot quicker I would guess.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:We've gotten this by aosgood (Score:1) Friday April 09 2004, @02:51PM
    • Re:We've gotten this (Score:5, Informative)

      by fo0bar (261207) * on Friday April 09 2004, @03:03PM (#8819382)
      I have several deaf friends who use both TTY relay services and the newer internet relay services. And because of this, admittedly I use the internet relay services occasionally. While this is technically an abuse of the system, as I myself am not deaf, it can be a real convieience. One thing to mention, if you do use these services, deaf or not, is to be POLITE. Remember, this is a throwback of the original TTY services, so there is a certain formality to the conversation. Use the proper etiquette, and be sure to thank the CA (communication assistant) at the end of the conversation. This must be an incredibly boring and tedious job, so at lease use a little manners when dealing with them.

      That being said, I would recommend at least listening to the first sentence of the caller before thinking about hanging up. Just yesterday I called a local computer shop to check the price of a power supply, and the conversation was quick and polite. (I doubt nigerian scammers would want to buy a $60 power supply and ask about the store hours). Here's approximately how a conversation goes: (other end begins with a colon)

      : dialing... 1... 2... answered... (male) thank you for calling computershop inc. how can i help you q ga
      hello. what is your lowest price on a 500 watt power supply q ga
      : let me check one moment (hold music) I have one for 59 90 ga
      thank you. and what time are you open until tonight q ga
      : 6 pm ga
      thanks a lot ga to sk
      : thank you (call ended)
      : ga or sk
      ca thank you sk
      : sksk

      A little terminology: "ga" means "go ahead", "q ga" is asking a question, "ga to sk" is signaling that you wish to end the conversation ("sk" meaning "stop keying"), "ga or sk" is essentially the CA asking "is there anything else I can do for you?", at which point I thank him/her and signal the end of the conversation. "sksk" is the final signal that the conversation is over.

      [ Parent ]
    • Re:We've gotten this by ChaosDiscord (Score:2) Friday April 09 2004, @03:40PM
    • Re:We've gotten this by Buh-Zard (Score:1) Friday April 09 2004, @06:50PM
    • Re:We've gotten this by Schaffner (Score:1) Friday April 09 2004, @05:35PM
    • 6 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • playing by the rules (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2004, @02:22PM (#8818821)
    This only proves that playing by the rules is not
    for everyone, be they terrorists, scammers or
    script kiddies.

    It takes a lot of work to make something, abuse
    or destruction is so much easier.
  • Free matter for the blind. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stankyho (172180) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:24PM (#8818851)
    (http://www.reames.org/)
    Anyone else know about the "free matter for the blind" scam?

    I read about it several (over 15) years ago in some magazine. Basically when mailing a letter instead of a stamp you just write free matter for the blind.

    I think I may have tried it once back then to send myself a letter just to see if it worked. Can't remember if it did though.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2004, @02:24PM (#8818852)
    Can be found here:

    http://phonelosers.org/sound.html [phonelosers.org]

    Specifcally this one which would probably get you a trip to camp X-ray today

    Phone_Losers_of_America_0118_Deaf_Relay_Commuter_A irline.mp3 [plamirror.com]
  • 419 Scammers ? (Score:3, Funny)

    by FoxMcCloud (572729) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:33PM (#8818968)
    419 scammers and credit card thieves are abusing the US' TTY service ?
    Mh, I wonder how they counted that there were precisely 419 of them.
  • I've had this happen where I work. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by b00m3rang (682108) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:33PM (#8818975)
    Someone supposedly calling from "Royal Oil" in Nigeria wanted to order 200 40GB hard drives, by credit card. We told them we only ship overseas if payment is made by wire transfer. Another hint was that it's unlikely an oil company would resort to using a yahoo email address (royaliol@). They called back several times, but we obviously wouldn't budge.

    The most annoying part was the amount of time it took to complete the calls. I can't be rude to a /possibly/ legitimate caller by hanging up, but the translation process takes a while... especially when they're probably on several calls and don't get back to the terminal by the time it's their turn to talk.
  • funny idea (Score:1)

    by whatamidoing (768296) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:33PM (#8818976)
    Has anyone ever used this to make a call to a 900 number?
  • ofcourse (Score:4, Insightful)

    Last year I had to track down some carders operating from the US, who were trying to buy products here in Europe with stolen and/or generated credit card numbers. It makes sense to pull that stunt with people (read: jurisdiction) far from your own home...

    You know how difficult (and expensive) it is to both track down the people and get a conviction? Laws are made on a national level, institutions such as police and justice departements are also pretty much bound to their specific country (unless you just act as if you own the world), hence international crime has little or no resistance. I mean, why would you care if the crime has been committed elsewhere?...

    Same with spam, really. Most spam I receive comes from scumbags on US soil, and it's pretty hard to harm them from here. As opposed to local spammers: a friend of mine once made a real-life visit when he received a spam email from a company not far from where he lives. He didn't get any spam anymore from that company.

    That might be a viable solution to the spam problem anyway: just a global team-up of people willing to visit spammers living close to their own home. I'm not implying a violent posse here. Even a criminal would get a clue when there's suddenly a bunch of very pissed off people in front of his/her door.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Simple Fix... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by zulux (112259) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:38PM (#8819047)
    (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 02 2002, @10:14PM)


    Here's a simple fix:

    Change the TTY/Realy number to a 1-900 numner and charge calls from whereever ther're made. Say $1.00 a minuite.

    Then every month - Registered and bonified deaf people can submit a copy of their telephone invoice to the Federal Government and get a refund check for the amount used.

    People who abuse the system without being daaf get to pay for it - deaf people get this vital service for free.

  • Easy solution? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rjelks (635588) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:39PM (#8819052)
    (http://www.geekinformed.com/)
    Can't the merchants just require the 3-digit security code on the back of the credit cards , if they're losing money?
  • by Da VinMan (7669) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:40PM (#8819064)
    I'm somewhat ignorant on this whole issue, but why don't the TTY service centers only accept calls from certain area codes and be done with it? There's no reason why they should have to service calls from outside their service area (which I'm assuming is regional to AZ), much less outside the country.

    What am I missing here?
  • legality of aiding in illgeal things (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bsDaemon (87307) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:43PM (#8819104)
    (http://www.anreabhloid.org/)
    If the operator is, by law, required to facilitate the conversation, what happens if it is blatantly illegal, such as a terrorist plot, or a deal for kiddy porn or drugs? the operator is required to keep the conversation confidentail? It is not like there can't be deaf criminals. And besides, if these people are not even deaf, what is to say that the same thing can not be done by criminals or terrorists?
    is the opperator still required to facilitate the conversation and keep quiet? isn't that then like, being an accessory to the crime, maybe even conspiricy? If they call the police, then is that evidence or witness testimony inadmissible for breaking the confidentiality of the service?
  • by yarrick (583362) on Friday April 09 2004, @02:48PM (#8819148)
    But Internet relay service makes up a minuscule fraction of revenues for Sprint, said company spokesman Steve Lunceford.

    "It's not a financial thing for us," he said.

    That's totally false. I used to work for an internet relay company as a relay operator (*cough* begins with an M ends with an I *cough*). Here's the plain and simple facts of it:

    Relay companies get paid XX amount of dollars per day, assuming they can meet a certain service level. They have to answer calls queued into their system within a certain period of time. Every call that isn't answered is counted against their running total.

    If a relay company falls below a certain percent (it's around 80% or so in a 24 hour period of time), they receive NO MONEY for that day. For the company I worked at, they had 1 day last year where they failed to maintain the standard. The amount of money lost for 1 day? Approaching $3 million according to management.

    Anyone saying that business isn't a money making enterprise is full of BS.

  • As a student loan company, we get an enormous number of these calls every week. Every time we have a new hire, we have to take at least half a day of training to educate them on the various ways that overseas scammers will attempt to take advantage of phone reps. The TTY server, and AT&T's Internet Relay service, are badly abused. It's to the point now where we are considering a voice message to direct the rare legitimate TTY-necessary customer to either email or fax options - at least with those options, we can blacklist originating exchanges (outside the US) or on spam lists.

    It's really sad, but there will always be those whose work ethic embodies the tragedy of the commons to the fullest.
  • sites fighting the 419 scammers (Score:3, Informative)

    Some people are fighting back against the 419 scammers. For general information about fighting 419 scam: Here are a few sites dedicated to exposing 419 scammers in an interesting and/or amusing way:
  • this reminds me... (Score:1)

    by c4ffeine (705293) * <c4ffeine@gmail.com> on Friday April 09 2004, @03:35PM (#8819740)
    of the jokes some friends of mine used to play with the Sprint Online Relay. Prank calls mostly, but I've heard that someone tried to call in a bomb threat or something with it to cancel school...

    So, basically this is nothing new.

    by the way, it's at http://www.sprintrelayonline.com/
  • Why? (Score:2)

    by Guppy06 (410832) on Friday April 09 2004, @03:37PM (#8819778)
    (Last Journal: Saturday October 27, @04:36PM)
    Alright, I actually RTFA and I still don't get it. Scammers are abusing TTY services (or, more accurately, web-based applications intended to replace Ye Olde Teletypes). What I still don't understand is why?

    I suppose the scammers realize their accents or (relatively) poor grasp of English might make the recipient of the calls suspicious, but it seems that TTY calls are rare enough to garner attention of their own. Are the scammers that short-sighted?

    Or is it related to Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory [penny-arcade.com] and the scammers don't have the nerve to try pulling the scam "face-to-face"?

    At any rate, how much to these TTY terminals cost?
    • Re:Why? by idesofmarch (Score:2) Friday April 09 2004, @04:55PM
      • Re:Why? by r1ch (Score:1) Saturday April 10 2004, @07:05AM
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2004, @03:59PM (#8820087)
    www.sprintrelayonline.com [sprintrelayonline.com] should filter out every IP address that starts with 80. Sorry if you are still in the US (I doubt it), but every fraud call I've taken starts with 80.* Recently there have been a lot of 80.179.* which I have traced to Israel.

    First of all we are not supposed to process International calls. If the CA determines the user is from outside the US there is a phrase that is typed. The problem is trying to convince a supervisor that 80.179 is Israel. They barely know what an IP address is let alone the use of whois to determine the ownership of a block of IP's.

    The problem is they can't! The FCC has everything all fucked up.

  • The biggest problem here is that ordering over the phone or tty with stolen credit or ID info is much too easy to scam.

    There should be double the punishment for committing the crime of ID fraud than there is now. Thrice when done under the guise of using services for the disabled -- a hate crime of sorts.
    A scammer stole a vital resource to an upright member of society; a call to a doctor perhaps for urgent assistance, calling for a ride for personal saftety reasons (night, weather, etc). This would constitute a double theft and causing a societal safety issue that makes it a hate crime as it exploits a protected group, the disabled.

    Also many watchdogs urge that society demand that _Free_ credit reports be given to victims of credit/ID theft be given for 5 years after each & every breach. For repeated breaches (when not the user's fault) the credit agency and merchant _not_ the consumer should be held accountable.

    Both merchants that took stolen numbers and the credit agencies should be fine each other heavily till they start insisting the everyone improve the authentication mechanisms of their credit systems.

    Merchants and Credit bureaus should not by legislation be allowed to pass monetary loss onto consumers.

    I'm suspecting that soon TTY centers will have the international calling flags installed like most credit card processing centers. These typically let the operator know the call is somehow not originating from inside the country.

    Although with outsourcing this is going to be sticky to impliment.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2004, @04:55PM (#8820754)
    Filename: troubleshooting_bombthreat.doc
    Design Date: 08/01/01
    Designer: Face

    CALL SET-UP

    Condition: Caller states there is a bomb

    Follow Center procedure to call supervisor
    Ask WHEN WILL BOMB EXPLODE Q GA
    Ask WHERE IS BOMB NOW QQ GA
    Ask WHAT DOES BOMB LOOK LIKE Q GA
    Ask WHAT KIND OF BOMB IS IT QQ GA
    Ask WHAT WILL CAUSE BOMB TO EXPLODE Q GA
    Ask DID YOU PLACE THE BOMB QQ GA
    Ask WHY Q GA
    Ask WHAT IS UR ADDRESS Q GA
    Ask WHAT IS UR NAME Q GA

    NOTE Tone of voice/background sounds/type of language used

    Allow Operations manager/supervisor to take over

    IF DURING A CALL, A CALLER STATES THERE IS A BOMB IN THE RELAY CENTER

    Relay call as usual

    Remember CONFIDENTIALITY IS A FEDERAL MANDATE!

    GETTING STARTED CALL PROCESSING BILLING OPTIONS TROUBLE SHOOTING ABBREVIATIONS BOMB THREAT
  • I used to work at a small OEM computer manufacturer, and we got those TTY calls occasionally. It wasn't too hard to tell they were scamming us. They wanted FedEx to pick up the shipment (as opposed to having us handle the shipping), and as soon as I suggested anything the response was "Yes, we want that!" - Although their grammer wasn't nearly that good...

    I remember one call where I told them "We have a system that costs $900." They immediately responded with "Yes, we want twenty of those." No haggling, no questions about CPU, RAM, or anything else. I just told them the price and they said they wanted twenty. At this point I told the operator to tell them to stop calling us, and that we're not stupid enough to fall for their scam (I think that was the third time I'd talked to them).
  • Holy Crap!!! (Score:1)

    by a!b!c! (137622) on Friday April 09 2004, @06:05PM (#8821342)
    Slashdot is suggesting that we limit the liberties of others in the name of security! I thought this place was always will to protect the rights of people using public services, but now I see that they have decided that this is wrong.

    I wonder where they draw the line.

    Are people upset that the calls can't be logged?
    Are people upset that the users don't have to register and log in?

    I've heard so many people complain about these issues in other contexts, and its funny to see people here advocate the other side, just because of one puny article!

    Hahahahaha...
  • by v1 (525388) on Friday April 09 2004, @06:06PM (#8821354)
    (http://vftp.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday December 09 2006, @09:52PM)
    I work at a computer retailer, and we get about one of these calls a day, almost always for purchases of several laptops. (expensive nice ones, macintosh or toshiba usually) Our sales manager has implemented the policy that as soon as the TTY voice is heard, recite "DO NOT CALL BACK EVER AGAIN" and hanging up. It seems a bit rude to me, but then again, attempting to scam a small business out of thousands of dollars is also quite rude.

    This apparently has been going on for the last several years, so it's nothing new. I was surprised just how many of these calls we get - there must be quite a few scammers out there running through the phonebooks looking for a mark.
  • Reverse DNS??? (Score:1)

    by MarvinIsANerd (447357) on Friday April 09 2004, @06:47PM (#8821618)
    This is an internet service that is being abused. This service is supposed to be used only by residents of the United States. Would it be so difficult to do a reverse DNS lookup on the caller and making sure they are connecting to the service from inside the USA? Or at least make sure they are not coming from Nigeria or whatever. Anyone?
  • I, sirs, am a relay operator. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2004, @10:23PM (#8822649)
    So I have to put in my 250,000 lira. Mind you, this is never going to be noticed, due to my happy anonymity.

    BUT:

    I work for MCI Worldcom as a relay operator. More specifically, the California Relay Service (CRS). Our center handles calls from IP-RELAY.com (so do the Arizona Relay, the Tennessee Relay, and the Wisconsin Relay, if anyone cares). So all day, it's prank calls and Nigerian scammers. There are a few deaf people using the service, but not many. The signal-to-noise ratio is much too low, so to speak. I make a few measly dollars and hour to put up with this sort of shit. (But at least the health benefits are okay)

    It's always Ghanans and Nigerians. Every single fucking time. Not Koreans or Israelis or anyone else. Most are in Accra, Ghana.

    They buy very few computers, despite what the article says. Mostly, they call printing shops to order blank T-shirts. I'm not really very sure why printing, silkscreening, and embroidery shops would even sell blank white T-shirts in the first place, but they do. Did I mention it's always XXL and XXXL shirts? Don't let those Sally Struthers commercials fool you; people in Ghana are fucking CHUBBY.

    Today, it was wedding dresses. I'm curious why people don't get suspicious when someone wants to order 6 wedding gowns over the phone. Especially when they don't care what sizes or styles, just the price. Not extra large, though, oddly enough, so maybe they're not all as chubby as it seems.

    Some days it's shoes. Some days it's designer perfume. Or gold wristwatches. And some days it is in fact computers.

    And 99% of the time, the credit card is declined. And 90% of the time when that happens, the fucking moron at whichever shop I'm calling will actually ask the person if they have another card. They always have a spare, sometimes with a completely different name.

    Things to look for, if you're a store:

    - The scammer will always ask to have the shop run the credit card while they are on the line. This means, in stores with only one line, that the credit card machine will AUTOMATICALLY approve the card if it passes whatever obscure checksum process they go through. Nice trick.

    - The scammer will, if pressed for a phone number, say that it's not currently working. They don't claim to be deaf and have no phone, which is actually pretty common among the deaf. Instead, they give a phone number with too many digits to be a US number, or an email address. This email address will be composed of a foreign-sounding name, but it will NOT match the name the person gave on the card.

    - The total price will be just shy of $10,000 to avoid hitting the card's limit, OR it will be some multiple of that, and the scammer will have several cards.

    So, every now and then the scammer gets someone to ship him something, be it a half dozen BMW radiators or a $9000.00 Bernina commercial grade sewing machine. He gets his payoff. Congratulations, you stupid sons of bitches, you've successfully stolen things. What do you do with the money?

    You give it to terrorists, of course, so they can go to pilot school. Allah Akbar! (or whatever) Thank goodness for weak extradition treaties, otherwise this wouldn't be possible.

    So do the executives at MCI know about all of this? Of course. The government is giving them a whole fucking load of money every day to keep the relay centers open. Hope it's worth it, guys. As for me, I'm out of there as soon as I get my book written (never).
  • Only one of many ways (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2004, @10:45PM (#8822724)
    Quite frankly, I don't see much of a problem with the TTY service. There are plenty of other opportunities for said scammers to fraudulently buy products with someone else's financial information. The operators are doing their duty just as they should; being a truly anonymous & non-interacting relay.

    Logging conversations for later access would be an immense privacy violation, putting the TTY-using deaf/dumb population at yet another disadvantage. A lot of it wouldn't even be useful with the only traceable information being the IP address of the Internet connection (unless some reference was made in the call... which could easily be fabricated).

    It does seem logical to verify that the users of this system are deaf/dumb & are in need of this service. But this would add a whole new layer of nessesary infrastructure to the TTY system. I can think of no foolproof test {online or in person} for the lack of speech or hearing, which can both be faked without too much effort. Even if we were able to obtain such information perfectly, it is unlikely that much useful could be done with it. A government listing of hearing impaired persons & unique ID numbers? With this time of nationwide government database integration & information mining, it would be wise to consider the effects of yet another well-seeming database & its effects in strenghtening the informational power of the feds over the populace. Consider this too: the assignment of "hearing impared" authorization #s or IDs will not significantly hinder criminals who already make a business of illegally obtaining similar uniquely-identifying, supposedly confidential, information.

    The responsibility rests on both ends of the transaction. The middleman simply does not have the resources to effectively intervene, nor the responsibility for what is being anonymously forwarded.
  • a bit confused... (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 09 2004, @11:21PM (#8822869)
    How is using TTY any different than ordering over the phone? I could (and have) taken my mother's credit card and ordered things with her card. She has a female name ,I have a female voice. I could have been any female that stole the card. I dont see how ordering through TTY relay service allows for more scamming than ordering over the phone does?

    I think i'm missing something.. :-/

    Moreover, I'd like to add, as a child of 2 deaf parents, that is extremely frustrating and saddening when companies hang up on the relay service. Deaf people are PEOPLE. Would you hang up on a hearing person for trying to place an order? Extremely, extremely rude..
  • I got one of these calls at work a few months ago at the computer company where I'm employed. It was from AT&T's service, and when she said it was a service for the deaf, I had to ask her to explain it to me several times. Finally I got that there was someone typing messages to her who wanted her to relay them to me. The guy wanted a bunch of stuff - IIRC, a boatload of printer cartridges - and he didn't dick me around on the price which was my first clue. I forget exactly how the call went, we've gotten lots of these calls, but I began to realize something funky was going on - like the guy didn't have a credit card or something. I started asking the AT&T operator what was going on, and she couldn't come right out and tell me, but finally she said, "I'd be very careful with this," or words to that effect. That was when I knew she was trying to tell me, in a manner which wouldn't get her fired, that she suspected a scam. I told her to tell the guy we couldn't help him and then we hung up.

    We got another one prior to this, although not through a TTY service, by a guy who claimed to be a U.S. soldier stationed at Guantanamo Bay, and he needed a satellite service setup. He wanted us, though, to ship it only to New York. Not only did I think it extremely likely that a US soldier would need us to send him a satellite setup, and even less likely that he'd be allowed to admit he was at Gitmo, but he didn't even introduce himself officially - it came out later in the conversaton. Suspicious, I began asking for a lot of information - like an email address, and he gave me a Yahoo one, rather than a US military address. I told him we couldn't help him out, and that night I reported it to the FBI.

    The boss told me later he'd almost been duped by one of these guys, although the product never got shipped because he began to smell a scam and he cancelled the order at the last minute (my boss did, not the scammer). Our sort of unofficial policy now is we don't ship out of state unless it's for a customer we already know.


  • It's also logical. Do you steal a lolly pop from a kid, or from a big-ass professional boxer? ;)

    I mean, you can't really expect thieves to have a superior sense of morality, do you... :)
    [ Parent ]
  • Name me one smart death person.

    Death person? Is that another term for Zombie?

    Ok... here goes... a smart death person:

    John Kerry
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:DEAF AND DUMB (Score:3, Funny)

    by winkydink (650484) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Friday April 09 2004, @02:49PM (#8819160)
    (http://www.networkmirror.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday July 05, @04:34PM)
    Helen Keller. I would however be hard-pressed to name a smart AC.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:TTY stands for (Score:2, Informative)

    by Neil Blender (555885) <neilblender@gmail.com> on Friday April 09 2004, @03:05PM (#8819406)
    TTY = Teletypewriter
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:DEAF AND DUMB (Score:1)

    by captdeaf (409900) on Saturday April 10 2004, @08:00AM (#8824171)
    Introducing ... ME! And hundreds of my friends. And those are just the ones I know.

    Although I guess I'm not all that smart - I bothered reply to a troll post on a slashdot article, when I usually read at 4+.

    'death'. I dearly hope your spelling is the worst of your faults.
    [ Parent ]
  • 17 replies beneath your current threshold.