Here’s a new phone scam.
I don’t use voice mail at home because I use an answering machine. But those of you who do use voice mail should be aware of this scam.
Phooey on AT&T for holding their customers responsible for those long-distance calls that they didn’t even make.
:mad:
Thanks, I hadn’t heard about that one.
I am more concerned that this could be a nearly untraceable way for terror cells to communicate with their overseas handlers.
The main victim of this scam cited in the link was charged for thousands of dollars of calls to Saudi Arabia and the Phillipines.
If I was a victim of this scam, I would demand the records of where the calls originated and take the info straight to the FBI.
How in the world can they be held financially responsible for those calls??
Well, yes, AT&T shouldn’t make her pay the charges, but come on - using 1-2-3-4 as a pass code? What does she use at work - “password?” :rolleyes:
Esprix
Hell no, she uses “456”
Sure, but it was her voice mail, not her ATM code. I sure am not (err, was not previously) that concerned about some nefarious type hacking my voice mail! Why would they care that I have no life? And even if they did, so what? They learn that I have an overdue movie at Blockbuster? I could never have imagined that because my voice mail password was not secure, I might be on the hook for $80,000 in long distance charges. I really find it hard to assign any blame to this woman at all.
It could very well work with an answering machine. You may have to change it a bit to accomidate the outgoing message time limit. But I could see it working:
(phone rings)
(answering machine picks up and outgoing message plays (OGM))
OGM - Hello (pause)…
Assumed Opperation - will you accept the charges for Mr. Dirtbag calling oversees.
OGM continued - …Hmmmmmmmmmm, Yes…Yes I will.
Now as to who’s fault, it’s the dirtbags and he should pay if found. If My Dirtbag can’t be found then who is to blame?
- The customer for having insufficent security
- the telephone operator (hense the telco) for not catching it.
I don’t know but it would seem like if the call is oversees and can ring up some serious charges the telco might be a little more sure that they are actually talking to a person.
That’s the kind of combination an idiot would have on their luggage!
[sub]and change the combination on my luggage![/sub]
Expect this type of thing to increase, not decrease. As more and more sophisticated systems become publically-facing, responsibility for securely interacting with those systems will fall on the average joe. As we’ve seen here the bad guys can do a lot of damage in a short time. Some systems to detect abnormal usage and challenge the account owner to verify these incidents(a-la credit card fraud prevention procedures) would be helpful, but even that is going to increase the burden on the consumer. The average joe just isn’t trained in IT security, nor, IMHO, should they be expected to be. Many people may not even be aware that their accounts have passwords. When I call my voicemail for my cell phone from the cell phone I am not prompted for a password. If my carrier had a default password on my mailbox this could well have been me in this story, or any number of other people I know.
As for AT&T being asshats for not forgiving it, they may be in more of a pickle than a surface call appears. These were international calls. That means they went off AT&T’s networks and AT&T is going to be facing bills from those other carriers in wherever those bad guys called. This isn’t just about AT&T eating a bit of a loss and having a slightly lower profit margin, I’d guess 50% or more of that 20k is in bills being presented TO AT&T, not BY AT&T. It really isn’t thier money to forgive. They acted as her agent in connecting her service to pretty much anyone else in the world with a phone number. They assumed some responsibility here and so did she. Given the facts in the case I’m not sure how this should fall. It’s pretty sticky, and it won’t be an isolated incident, I promise.
Enjoy,
Steven
I agree- how can this woman be held responsible? I nearly always use codes like that for voicemail- very easy to guess because it’s only my husband and I accessing them. I never knew someone could hack into your voicemail and use your line to charge up calls- how could someone possibly know that and be prepared? Please. AT&T needs to credit those customers.