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| Residents pay for inmate call scam |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 02/28/2005 |
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Jail inmates across Florida have tapped into the residential phone lines of unsuspecting residents to make long-distance calls in a yearlong scam, officials said. The inmates make collect calls at random, then persuade the unwitting person on the line to push star-72 and the number to the pay phone at the jail. That forwards the line to the jail pay phone and gives the inmate access to the residential line to make calls, including long distance. The Miami-Dade County Jail has received calls from victims weekly for about a year, spokeswoman Janelle Hall said. She didn't know the total number of victims. Some were scammed out of hundreds of dollars in long-distance calls, she said. The jail added a warning to its collect-call message that says dialing star-72 could make the person a victim of a scam. But victims don't pay attention to the message, she said. "The main thing to do is just don't accept the call," Hall said. "Once the resident accepts the call, it's their responsibility." The scam also occurs at other jails, she said. One victim, Joan Church of Williston, said she received an unnerving call from Miami two weeks ago. "The man told me there had been an accident involving two men and two women," Church said. "He said, 'You need to call this number and ask for Dr. Allen.' " The anonymous caller told the 62-year-old retired widow to dial star-72, then call a phone number with a 305 area code. Church said she has a son living in Homestead and thought she was dialing a hospital number. Eventually, she called the phone company and learned about the call-forwarding feature. She is still waiting for her phone bill to find out how many calls were made on her line. State prisons have stopped similar scams by preventing inmates from unrestricted collect calling and three-way calling, said Debbie Buchanan, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Corrections. |
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