[plug] Mobile phone scam - Beware

[Patrick Coleman]

On 6/15/06, Jonathan Young <jonathan at pcphix.com> wrote:
>
> Business mobile users often call back missed calls in case it was a
> paying customer who is in danger of going elsewhere.  I don't
> personally since I have a message service and expect people to use it,
> but a lot of people do.
>
> Secondly, I would take it up with my mobile phone carrier (and quite
> frankly refuse to pay) if a number starting with an 02 or 03 area code
> and followed by 8 digits making up a normal "land line" was charged at
> anything other than the normal rate.
>
> If I see a number in the format (02) xxxx xxxx or (03) xxxx xxxx, there
> is no way it should cost me any more than I'd expect.  That is the
> whole reason we are provided different rates for different numbers by
> our phone provider and expected to be able to pick the difference
> between a mobile, land line, international, STD call etc. etc.  I don't
> see how this scam can even work.

I've got no idea how it can work either :)

FWIW TripleJ's Hack just ran a story on this (or something similar, I
missed the start :) about an hour ago - should be up on the podcast
soonish. The guts of it was that it was happening, and that Choice
says its bad, but the ACCC is refusing to say whether they're
investigating it or not. Didn't hear much factual information aside
from interviews with people who say "This should be illegal!1!!" etc
etc etc.

-Patrick
-- 
http://www.labyrinthdata.net.au