Chickashanews.com

Local News

September 5, 2008

Beware: new scam surfaces

Karen Brady





The Oklahoma Highway Patrol reports that they have received numerous telephone calls from alarmed citizens who have received messages saying there has been a serious, sometimes fatal, accident on a highway and that their phone number was listed on a cell phone found inside of the vehicle involved in the crash.

They are then instructed to dial an exact sequence of numbers beginning with *72.

According to AT &T;, *72 is a custom feature for call forwarding. When a customer dials *72, followed by a telephone number, the call forwarding feature is activated, causing all of the customer’s incoming calls to ring to another number.

These calls can be forwarded to a land line or pay phone and even override the ability of cell phones to accept collect calls.

A third party will accept the charges for these calls and they will be billed back to you, because your telephone number is where the forwarded calls originated. You may not even realize what has happened for several days.

While the scam is occurring in Oklahoma and other states as well, Chickasha Police Chief Lynn Williams says he has not heard of any reports in the Grady County area.

Similarly, Chickasha OHP Secretary Karen Ward says she is not aware of the scam having been attempted in the Chickasha area.

Authorities warn if you receive one of these calls, do not call the number you are given, but call your local law enforcement agency.

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