809 Area Code: Scam or Internet Hoax??!!??

Factual Questions
1

Just got the following email from a friend. This area code is indeed in the Carribbean, but not in the Virgin Islands. There is nothing on the CIAC site about it. It smells of an Internet hoax. National Fraud Center? Never heard of them. British Virgin Islands in the Bahamas? Maybe it’s my geography that is off, but this smells of a fraud that only an Internet “Virgin” would fall for!

What’s the Straight Dope, Teeming Minions? Here goes:
Subject: 809 area code scams
Subject: SPECIAL ALERT - DON’T EVER DIAL AREA CODE 809

This is pretty scary - especially given how they try to get you to call. Be
sure you read this & pass it on to all your friends & family so they
don’t get scammed!

SCAM: Don’t Respond To Emails, Phone Calls, Or Web Pages Which Tell You to
Call An “809” Phone Number.

This can easily cost you $100 or more, and is difficult to avoid unless you
are aware of it. We’d like to thank Paul Bruemmer and Brian Stains for
bringing this scam to our attention. This scam has also been identified by
the National Fraud Information Center and is costing victims a lot of
money. There are lots of different permutations of this scam, but HERE’S
HOW IT WORKS:

Permutation #1: Internet Based Phone Scam Via
Email

You receive an email, typically with a subject line of “ALERT” or
“Unpaid account.”

The message, which is being spammed across the net, says: I am writing to
give you a final 24 hrs to settle your outstanding account. If I have not
received the settlement in full, I will commence legal proceedings without
further delay. If you would like to discuss this matter to avoid court
action, call Mike Murray at Global Communications on at 1-809-496-2700.

Permutation #2: Phone Or Pager Scam

You receive a message on your answering machine or your pager which
asks you to call a number beginning with area code 809. The reason you’re
asked to call varies: it can be to receive information about a family
member who has been ill, to tell you someone has been arrested, died, or to
let you know that you have won a wonderful prize, etc…

In each case, you’re told to call the 809 number right away. Since there are
so many new area codes these days, people unknowingly return these calls.

If you call from the US, you will apparently be charged $25 per-minute!
Sometimes the person who answers the phone will speak broken English
and pretend not to understand you. Other times, you’ll just get a long
recorded message. The point is, they will try to keep you on the phone as
long as possible to increase the charges. Unfortunately, when you get your
phone bill, you’ll often be charged more than $100.00.

HERE’S WHY IT WORKS:

The 809 area code is located in the British Virgin Islands (the Bahamas).
The 809 area code can be used as a “pay-per-call” number, similar to
900 numbers in the US. Since 809 is not in the US, it is not covered by
US regulations of 900 numbers, which require that you be notified and
warned of charges and rates involved when you call a “pay-per-call” number.

There is also no requirement that the company provide a time period
during which you may terminate the call without being charged. Further,
whereas many US phones have 900 number blocking to avoid these kinds of
charges, 900 number blocking will not prevent calls to the 809 area code.

We recommend that no matter how you get the message, if you are
asked to call a number with an 809 area code that you don’t recognize,
investigate further and/or disregard the message.

Be very wary of email or calls asking you to call an 809 area code
since trying to fight the charges afterwards can become a real nightmare.
That’s because you did actually make the call. If you complain, both your
local phone company and your long distance carrier will not want to get
involved and will most likely tell you that they are simply providing the
billing for the foreign company. You’ll end up dealing with a foreign
company that argues they have done nothing wrong.

Please forward this entire issue of Internet ScamBusters! To your friends,
family and colleagues to help them become aware of this scam so they don’t
get ripped off.

Christine Rehkop
Executive Secretary, IT/R&D
crehkop@aflac.com

2

It reeks of “hoax”. Have you checked Snopes yet?

3

Actually, although the letter is histronic and geographically incorrect–British West Indies is not part of the Bahamas–it does point out a way in which scammers get around 900 blocks. From http://www.att.com:

Be cautious about area codes you don’t recognize. Check your telephone directory or call the operator to determine where the area code is before making your call.

Control access to your telephone so unauthorized callers do not use your phone to call these services. A block on calls to “900” services will not stop calls to “011” or “809” numbers. If you’re sure you won’t need to make international calls, call your long-distance carrier and ask them to put an international block on your telephone line.

Me again. If you have an international calling plan, that covers 809, you should not be subjected to a $25/minute charge when you dial them. Just in case, still be careful.

4

There is a real National Fraud Center: http://www.fraud.org.

Also, due to shakeup of area codes, you should be careful of these out-of-US area codes: 242, 246, 264, 268, 284, 345, 441, 473, 664, 758, 767, 784, 787, 868, 869, 876 as well as 809. (Thanks to snopes.com).

5

The part about forwarding the letter to scambusters.com, bbb.com, fraud.org, etc., that was probably added by a spammer or scammer who was pissed about being found out. The people at the above places are well aware of this scam; they don’t need to receive any more mailings forwarded to them, clogging up their system.

6

Apparently this is a thread for people who cannot type ‘809’ into a search engine. OK, I will do it for you and enclose the results:

Sightings, Notes & Updates
809 Area Code Phone Scam

08/05/99 - Various alerts are now circulating warning consumers not to respond to phone, pager, or email requests to dial a number beginning with the 809 area code to “settle an unpaid account” to “collect a wonderful prize,” etc. According to the alerts, the area code is in the Caribbean and can be set up as a “pay-per-call” number (like 900 numbers in the U.S.). People who respond to these requests can get stuck with a whopping phone bill for an international call.

This information is basically true. The warnings originated in an edition of Internet ScamBusters, a respectable newsletter that keeps subscribers apprised of current frauds and scams. The original article appeared in 1996, but a recent AT&T publication indicates that the scam is still active.

Multiple versions of the alert exist because people can and do alter such texts before sending them on, which means the specific message you receive may or may not contain accurate details.

For that reason, recipients are best advised not to forward warnings like these any further. If you feel compelled to warn your friends of the telephone scam, send them the URL of the original article instead:
http://www.scambusters.org/ScamBusters8.html

Update: Why was this 1996 alert revived three years later? David Spalding ventures a theory in the latest edition of Hoax du Jour.

7

809 area code is Dominican Republic. British Virgin Islands are 284; Bahamas is 242. Puerto Rico is 787 and soon 939.
For those of you outside the North American Numbering Plan, all of these are in country code 1.

More info about area codes than you ever wanted…

The AreaCode Info pages, with fantastically-detailed information for North America, including a schedule of upcoming area-code changes:

http://www.areacode-info.com/

The World Telephone Numbering Guide, with information about country codes and dialing patterns for the whole world. Text-based, faster, and easier to read than AreaCode Info:

http://phonebooth.interocitor.net/wtng/

LincMad.com. Has the best single-page map of North American area codes around, but needs to be updated:

http://www.lincmad.com/

8

TC, thanks for the info. I know of another word I CAN type into my search engine: “SMART-ASS”.LOL

Remember, if we all went to our Search Engines every time we had a question, there would be no Straight Dope Message Board!

9

That thread must be old. At one time 809 was the area code for the entire Carribean. So it was easy to not call. Now they split the Carribean into many area codes. Only the Dominican Republic is left with 809. So now it is harder to tell which area codes are international.

10

There is a kernel of truth to all this.

Once upon a time of monopolistic imperial Telephone Companies, most of the English-and-Spanish-speaking Antilles (except Cuba, natch) were lumped together as, not an “international” 011+code calling area, but as a “North American” LD 1+XXX calling area.

Anyway, around the late 80s and early 90s it came to pass, that there DID arise a booming (legal)Phonesex, Phonepsychic and othersuch business in somne of the islands. This would badly soak callers who were not aware that except in the case of Puerto Rico/USVI they were NOT calling a US Area Code. However there also arose a high level of scams, e.g. cell-phone “cloning”, in 809.

When it came time to reorganize the area codes and to give each jurisdiction its own distinct code, the “809” code was abandoned by everyone but the DR in 1994-95. Overall, 787, 939, and whatever’s the USVI code are “safe” numbers to call.

11

I checked on the National Fraud Information Center site and found several references to frauds/scams using area code 809. This is one of the links that I found:

http://www.fraud.org/news/1996/apr96/041296.htm

It appears that there are frauds out there using this area code, but the most recent article on their site is from 1997, so perhaps this is just a recurrance dredged up by someone wanting to scare people.