#90 on your telephone

[Suda]

Received this e-mail warning from a friend. Don't know if it's truth or legend, but thought I'd pass it on in case it could be helpful to any of you.

I dialed '0' and asked the operator who confirmed that this was correct so please pass it on. PASS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

I received a telephone call last evening from an individual identifying himself as an AT&T Service Technician (could also be Telus) who was conducting a test on the telephone lines. He stated that to complete the test I should touch nine(9), zero(0), the pound sign (#), and then hang up. Luckily, I was suspicious and refused.

Upon contacting the telephone company, I was informed that by pushing 90#, you give the requesting idividual full access to your Telephone line, which enables them to place long distance calls billed to your home Phone number.

I was further informed that this scam has been originating from many local jails/prisons.

DO NOT press 90# for ANYONE.

The GTE Security Department requested that I share this information with EVERYONE I KNOW.

After checking with Verizon they said it was true, so do not dial 90# for anyone !!!!!

PLEASE HIT THAT FORWARD BUTTON AND PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!

Vivian Thompson, Crime Prevention Coordinator

South Surrey District 5 RCMP

604-592-3826

E-mail vivian.thompson@rcmp-grc.gc.ca

mailto:vivian.thompson@rcmp-grc.gc.ca

[oilfieldmedic]

Thank you sudosuda, I appreciate that

[A la prochaine]

Cool,

this vivian thompson is an RCMP officer and you know what they say...

..they always get their man!!

[ChasUFarley]

That only works if you have to dial 9 to get an outside line.

As Paul Harvey would say, "Now here's the REST of the STORY"....

Well, your fearless bus driver spent most of Tuesday on the phone with folks from both Force 3 (the company that originally reported this story) and AT&T (the long distance telephone company whose logo looks an awful lot like Darth Vader's Death Star). As shocking as this may sound, the "nine-zero-pound" story is true ... sort of.

What the warning letter floating around the Net doesn't say is that this scam only works on telephones where you have to dial 9 to get an outside line. Unless you have to dial 9 to get an outside line at home, this scam does not affect residential telephone users. Dialing "nine-zero-pound" on a residential phone will only give you a busy signal. That's it.

On some business phones, however, dialing "nine-zero-pound" may transfer a call to an outside operator and give the caller the opportunity to call anywhere in the world and charge it to your business' phone bill ... maybe. It all depends on how your business' telephone system is set up. If your company doesn't require you to dial 9 to get an outside line (for example, if you have a direct outside telephone line on your desk or if your company's phone system requires you to dial a number other than 9 to get an outside line) the "nine-zero-pound" scam does not affect you. Also, if your company's phone system is set up so that you cannot make a long distance call once you have accessed an outside line (a lot of companies now limit all outside lines to local calls only), the "nine-zero-pound" scam does not affect you either.

The "nine-zero-pound" story only affects those businesses that require you to dial 9 to get an outside line and then place no restrictions on who or where you can call once you get that outside line. And, just to be anal-retentive, let me say one more time that, unless you have to dial 9 to get an outside line at home, this scam does not affect residential telephone users. [it also probably doesn't affect non-US telephone users. This is especially true for British telephone users whose telephone system is so complex that NO ONE in the UK knows how to use BT's phones (although I am sure that BT users are currently dealing with some sort of "dial q-seven-pi-cromwell-eleventeen-tomato" scam)].

(Copy from here: http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa021898.htm)

[Oakspear]

I always check snopes when i get something like this in the email, and 99% of the time it's bogus

[Belle]

And 99% of the time I'm called a b1tch for pointing out that it's fake. :huh:

I'm sorry, Suda, I think things like this, ESPECIALLY those with remarkable claims and those that say it's an urgent message should be checked out through Snopes.com before forwarding them. What they do is clog, jam and otherwise overload servers - which doesn't mean much to non-network-nazis, but they are total headaches for them.

Futhermore, many, many, many, too many people do not erase all the other e-mail addresses before forwarding stuff like this and it's just awesome fodder for people who SPAM our e-mails. They KNOW these are valid e-mail addresses and copy them off these Urban Legend e-mails so that they can fill our inbox with advertisements about penile enrichment products, hot stock tips and other useless advertisements....

This is why whenever I DO forward an e-mail, I delete all other e-mail addresses and BCC the recipients.... that way if some jerk-wad e-mail collecting person gets ahold of it because of some inconsiderate/unknowing person in the future, I'm the only one affected. It's also the reason why certain people have a certain e-mail address of mine and NOT the one I use for 'REAL' e-mail conversations.....

It's a learning thing. Some of us have been around for a while and have learned these lessons the hard way. I remember calling Bob Moynihan in tears because I thought I had sent him a virus attached to some e-mail. I ALWAYS check Snopes.com before forwarding anything! Most times I don't forward them anyway. *shrug* I'd rather be safe than sorry and that means safe from well-meaning e-mails like the one that prompted folks to delete vital files from their hard drive that came out a few years ago and is STILL making the rounds.

Edited August 26, 2006 by Belle

[dmiller]

Last time I checked Snopes -- I was asked to hit 90#!!!

[pond]

Last time I checked Snopes -- I was asked to hit 90#!!!