Offered Job in Barbados - HELP verify phone number code & other info

Factual Questions
1

Okay, this is obviously too good to be true. Of course, that was true when I won a trip to Dublin in a Guinness sweepstakes last year, so I figure, what the hell, I’ll see if the collective wisdom of the SDMB can help verify a couple things.

So, I’m sitting at the bar last night, reading Keegan’s The Face of Battle and enjoying a Guinness or two. A couple sits next to me, and they’re obviously having a nice time. The woman is directly next to me, she asks what I’m reading, and as these things go, over fifteen or twenty minutes I end up having a conversation with them. They ask if I’m from here, and I explain my history; I ask where if they’re up visiting, and they tell me they’re from Barbados, here for a wedding.

Given that what I wanted to do (which would require a PhD in economics) I wasn’t able to do, and that I was frank about the events leading to my being in the bar reading a history book & drinking Guinness, he turns to her and says quietly, “He wouldn’t steal from us.” They have a quick, hushed conference, and inform me that they own a club in down in Barbados, just got robbed blind by a former manager, and are having a terrible time finding someone they can employ with confidence. Would I be interested?

Gosh, let me think, yes!

I set aside my skepticism in the name of politeness; i.e., I talk with them about it rather than just saying, “Friggin’ screw, serial killers!”

He writes down the name of their cub & their telephone number. Given the name of their club, he has to explain there’s a “tilde” over the u, and that it’s an “English pronounciation”: koom. I can’t find a u with a tilde on my character map, but he wrote the club name as “Club Cúm.” You can guess why that raised my eyebrow!

The telephone number they gave me began with “00-1-666,” and since I know nothing about international calling, I assumed that’d get me to Barbados; however, Google searches are telling me the country code for Barbados is 246.

I Googled for a while searching for mentions of “Club Cúm” (and all the different types of u I could think of), and surprisingly, very little porn obtained, but every reference used “cum” in the latin sense; e.g., “club-cum-restaurant.” I also searched around for country codes and 666, and I have found nothing encouraging.

Can anybody offer any insights to verifying what information they gave me? If so, will you please do so? As I mentioned at the beginning, I’m essentially assuming this is not really real; however, what the hell, why not look into it a bit? Thanks!

2

I suspect the 246 code isn’t a true international dialling code, but part of the N American system - try dialing as you would a normal long-distance number, in the form 246-666…

3

Here you go: ũ

“Your search - “club cũm” - did not match any documents.”

The 1-666 sounds very suspicious. But weirder things happen…

4

And probably IS.
Dolphin Gymnast : Antiques?
Or have Steering Wheel Spinners come back into style?

5

Just to clarify about international calling, calling overseas usually takes the following form:

[international dialing code] - [country code] - [area code] - [phone number]

In the US, the international dialing code - to get you out of the country - is 011. But in Europe and most of Asia, it is 00.

The country code for the US, Canada, and much of the Caribbean is 1, because the US invented the telephone. The rest of us have to get by with crap like 44 (UK), and 353 (Ireland).

However, to confuse matters, US long-distance dialing is preceded with a 1. Don’t know the reason for this, but it helps comprehension to think of it as a coincidence.

So 00-1-xxx xxx xxxx is someone used to dialing from Europe etc., calling the US or Canada or parts of the Caribbean.

Have you tried calling it? For dialing within the US, miss out the 00. You can always hang up.

6

To clarify - “US long-distance dialing” also includes calling [most of] the Caribbean, and Canada. (Damn, I’m trying to clarify, but I’m actually making it worse.)

BTW, I looked up the country code 666 and it doesn’t seem to exist, but 664 is Montserrat, which is in the Caribbean. So maybe it’s not totally out of the question?

7

I just spent a few minutes digging up Barbados yellow pages & directory pages…it appears all numbers have the format (246) 4xx-xxxx, except for some fax lines and similar, which can be (246) 2xx-xxxx. So my idea of (246) 666-xxxx is probably wrong.

8

:smiley: Hence the thread! Collectively, the SDMB can debunk things with a lot less effort than the individual can starting de novo.

My grandfather on my mother’s side died when I was about six. The accumulated items he and my grandmother had were not distributed, for lack of a better word, until she passed a few years ago. I ended up with four items: a necktie that’s so funky, it clashes with itself (and I love it!); a comically small pocket knife; an ivory chess set; and the dolphin gymnast. I don’t understand the mechanics behind my receipt of the chess set, but since it broke my uncle’s heart, I gave it to him under the understanding that it comes to me when he passes on. :slight_smile: You know how people can be when they get on in years; a name on any item may change daily as the elderly owner’s mood changes. Because of this, my uncle, who really did deserve the chess set, should have received it. It is literally true that the only memories I have of my grandfather (on my mom’s side) are of him and my uncle playing chess. For hours on end. They were like marble statues. Regardless, the gymnast is the coolest toy, because the patterns it make are so like those made by the double pendulum at the Ontario Science Center.

Nope. I figured somebody would have some insight that could be offered at low cost before I start racking up time on my phone. Just hanging up never occured to me. :o

International phone stuff is completely alien to me. Can you expand on this a bit? Thanks!

Thanks, everybody!!

9

OK…from the UK…

To phone any UK number, we typically dial 0xxxx-xxxxxx. Importantly, it begins with one and only one zero.

To dial an international number, it begins with 00. After that comes the international code - 1 for the US, 353 for Ireland, etc. So my aunt in Donegal is 00 353 xxxxxx, my cousin in Utah is 001 801 xxx-xxxx. (Here a difference arise for Americans, because you don’t use the 00 prefix for international numbers, but something else which someone else can explain :slight_smile:
My initial reply in this thread is because I have a friend in Bermuda. To call her from the UK is 001 441 xxx-xxxx, which is to all appearances an American number, unless you know that 441 is Bermuda and costs a lot more! From what I’ve found in relation to this thread, calling Barbados from the UK is a similar matter. Importantly, Bermuda numbers can be dialed from the US just as any other domestic long-distance calls.

10

1-666 = Area code of the Beast :wink:

11

I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but there was a story on the local news about a woman who was job hunting and received an email from a company in Nigeria (that should have alarmed her but it didn’t). Apparently these people were very slick, they asked for a resume, which she sent, and several days later she received a job offer w/ a substantial salary. Supposedly they were expanding into the U.S. and she was to be their rep. Long story short, several more days go by and she receives two checks, totaling about 5 grand, made out to this company. She contacts them and is told they are in the process of establishing an account in a U.S. bank, but in the meantime, can she deposit them and send them a check for the total, I think they offered a small fee for her trouble. She did it and, of course, the bank contacted her a couple of days later w/ the news that the checks were bogus. She’s on the hook for the lost money.

12

Well, it can’t hurt to just try calling. I mean, I’m all about risk/money management, but at the worst it wouldn’t cost you more than a couple bucks to give it the time of day required to figure out if it’s real or not. If it does turn out to be real, you have a life-changing opportunity, if it’s not, you have a story to tell the grandkids (and of course, the Dopers). Win either way.

13

Canada, the USA, and assorted Caribbean, Atlantic and Pacific countries and territories are all in telephone country code 1, which is managed by the North American Numbering Plan. They all have area codes within this country code.

The NANP covers more than one country. If you are dialing from one of these countries to another, you do not dial as if the call were an international call; you dial as if the call were a regular NANP long-distance call. This holds for calls within the USA, within Canada, from Canada to the US, from the US to Canada… and between any of the other territories mentioned in the quote.

From the NANP, you dial an international access code to reach numbers outside the NANP.

The NANP international access code is 01 or 011 (depending on how you are paying for the call). In the UK and a lot of other places in Europe, the international access code is 00. It is different again in other areas. Because of these differences, a convention has arisen to represent the international access code as a + sign.

Thus, a NANP number can be written in ‘full international format’ as +1 XXX XXX XXXX. This is what you have to dial to reach a NANP number from outside the NANP (that is, from a number outside country code 1).

NANP numbers are often written without the country code as (XXX) XXX-XXXX or even XXX-XXX-XXXX.

Likewise, a UK number can be written as +44 XX XXXX XXXX. A French number can be written as +33 X XX XX XX XX. And an Australian number can be written as +61 X XXXX XXXX. And so on. The 44, 33, and 61 are their respective country codes.

So, when dialing to any NANP territory from outside, you dial an international access code, then 1 for the country code, then the area code, then the remaining seven digits of the number.

Here’s the confusing part:

Inside the NANP, 1 just happens to be one of the trunk access codes. Thus, when we want to dial another number in a different area code in the NANP, we dial 1 or 0, then the area code, then the remaining seven digits of the number: 1 (or 0), then XXX XXX XXXX.

You will sometimes see NANP numbers written with the trunk access digit included, as 1-XXX-XXX-XXXX, or even 0-XXX-XXX-XXXX when they want you to call collect.

(In the UK, the trunk access code is 0, as GorillaMan mentioned. For some reason, people always write it in front of the area code, but it actually isn’t part of the area code. This is why you don’t dial it when calling the UK from outside.)

In the US and Canada, most intra-NANP calls are domestic in-country calls, and are charged at a fairly low rate. (You can get plans that give you unlimited calling across the whole US and Canada for CAD 20.00 a month, for example.)

There are a LOT–hundreds–of area codes in the US and Canada. The average person does not know them all.

But…

There are also the other 17 territories in the NANP, who have 19 or so area codes between them. Calls to these territories from Canada or the USA are international calls, and are charged at international rates… but they ‘look like’ domestic calls with an unfamiliar area code.

For example, Bermuda has NANP area code 441. In full international format, its numbers look like +1 441 XXX XXXX. But they are often written (441) XXX XXXX. Within Bermuda, you only need to dial the last seven digits.

If I call Bermuda from Toronto, I dial 1-441-XXX-XXXX, in the same way as if I were dialing my friends in a different area code just north of the city, 1-905-XXX-XXXX. Both are long-distance calls. But one is an expensive international call, and the other is only about sixty or seventy kilometres.

If I call the UK from Toronto, I dial 011-44-XX-XXXX-XXXX. This is outside the NANP, and I am dialing it as an international call. But it may very well be cheaper than that call to Bermuda.

Everything you ever wanted to know about area codes. The map in the linked site is much more up-to-date than the crappy maps they have in phone books. For instance, area code 972 is in Plano, Texas. My cousin had a number in that area code. It’s been five years since she moved away. My Bell phone book still doesn’t mention 972.

There is no area code 666 in the NANP.

14

Re: the OP:

Barbados numbers are in NANP area code 246: +1 246 XXX XXXX.

“00-1-666…” would be the the most common way of dialing a NANP number in area code 666: +1 666 XXX XXXX from outside the NANP. There is no NANP area code 666.

There is no country code 666 either; there is a country code 66, which you would dial from Michigan as 011-66-XXXX… Country code 66 is Thailand.There does not seem to be any area code starting with 6 in Thailand.

The World Telephone Numbering Guide has all sorts of info on telephone dialing and numbering worldwide.
And cwm is Welsh. :wink:

15

That’s what I was afraid of (among other things :smiley: ) My initial searches returned this result, which was why I came to the SDMB in case I was doing something wrong.

Cymru is one of my two favorite places!

16

Lemme put it this way: if you dial 1-666-anything and it actually connects, something is very wrong. Put down the phone, leave the room, and go as far away as you can, ideally to another continent. :slight_smile:

17

Have you tried the Barbados Chamber of Commerce? They might know if this is a scam, or help you find the business listing.

http://bdscham.com/

-Tcat