An 809 scam is a form of phone fraud which exploits the tendency of telephone subscribers in Canada and the United States to presume that a number in the familiar North American Numbering Plan format of 1-NPA-NXX-XXXX is a domestic call at standard rates because of the absence of the 011- international prefix which normally indicates an overseas call. [1]
Points in the former +1-809 area code are not in mainland North America but in the Caribbean, distributed among multiple small island nations. Some former 1-809 points are US possessions (such as Puerto Rico and USVI), but many are sovereign entities. Adding to the confusion, the 809 code was split into multiple new area codes in 1997. A call to these points may be just as expensive as any other overseas call.
Most numbers in these area codes are legitimate; calls to regular landlines in many of the countries may normally be moderately priced. There is, however, a risk that premium numbers in these area codes will not be properly identified as such; [2] the use of a foreign country allows circumvention of the meagre consumer protections which the US Federal Communications Commission or the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) apply to domestic 1-900 or 976-XXXX schemes. [3]
Consumers usually receive a message telling them to call a phone number with an 809, 284, 649, or 876 area code in order to collect a prize, find out information about a sick relative, etc. The caller assumes the number is a typical three-digit U.S. area code; however, the caller is actually connected to a phone number outside the United States, often in Canada or the Caribbean, and charged international call rates.
Often, the claims of high costs are exaggerated to the point of urban legend after repeated re-telling in e-mail. "I called this number not knowing it was $2425/minute and I received a bill for $24100" is likely a corruption of an original message that a $25/minute call rang up a $100 bill in four minutes; a huge distortion of what may have originally been a valid (but sensationalised) warning. [5]
As these are international calls, they are not covered by domestic flat-rate calling plans. These codes may contain caller-pays mobile numbers or individual countries which impose inflated taxes or monopoly pricing on inbound international calls.
Abuse of 1-809 to disguise premium numbers or numbers which paid a kickback to operators of the schemes has been reported at least as early as 1996. [6]
In some cases, the numbers are promoted as phone sex or other typical premium-price fare; the full cost of the call is often hidden by claiming the numbers to be free with the disclaimer that "international long distance charges may apply".
The numbers may appear in unsolicited commercial e-mail. They may be left as messages on voicemail systems or pocket pagers. They may be accompanied by fraudulent messages that a relative abroad is in trouble and needs assistance, or may be attached to an abusive message from a bogus collection agency. The motive is to trick the victim into calling the international number, and keep them on the line to run up long-distance charges. [7]
A more recent variant uses caller ID spoofing to make the victim's handset ring once - just long enough to display the number. If the curious (or annoyed) victim calls back, the number is on their bill; [8] a variant of the Wangiri "one ring" scams originally observed in Japan. [9]
The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the telephone country code 1. Some North American countries, most notably Mexico, do not participate in the NANP.
Premium-rate telephone numbers are telephone numbers that charge callers higher price rates for select services, including information and entertainment. A portion of the call fees is paid to the service provider, allowing premium calls to be an additional source of revenue for businesses. Tech support, psychic hotlines, and adult chat lines are among the most popular kinds of premium-rate phone services. Other services include directory enquiries, weather forecasts, competitions and ratings televoting. Some businesses, e.g. low-cost airlines, and diplomatic missions, such as the US Embassy in London or the UK Embassy in Washington, have also used premium-rate phone numbers for calls from the general public.
A toll-free telephone number or freephone number is a telephone number that is billed for all arriving calls. For the calling party, a call to a toll-free number from a landline is free of charge. A toll-free number is identified by a dialing prefix similar to an area code. The specific service access varies by country.
A telephone numbering plan is a type of numbering scheme used in telecommunication to assign telephone numbers to subscriber telephones or other telephony endpoints. Telephone numbers are the addresses of participants in a telephone network, reachable by a system of destination code routing. Telephone numbering plans are defined in each of the administrative regions of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and in private telephone networks.
Phone fraud, or more generally communications fraud, is the use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers.
In the United Kingdom, telephone numbers are administered by the Office of Communications (Ofcom). For this purpose, Ofcom established a telephone numbering plan, known as the National Telephone Numbering Plan, which is the system for assigning telephone numbers to subscriber stations.
The Australian telephone numbering plan governs the allocation of telephone numbers in Australia. It has changed many times, the most recent major reorganisation by the Australian Communications and Media Authority taking place between 1994 and 1998.
Area code 900 is a telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan for premium-rate telephone numbers. Area code 900 was installed in 1971.
In Argentina, area codes are two, three, or four digits long. Local customer numbers are six to eight figures long. The total number of digits is ten, for example, phone number (11) 1234-5678 for Buenos Aires is made up of a 2-digit area code number and an 8-digit subscriber's number, while (383) 123-4567 would be an example of a Catamarca number.
The area code 868 is assigned to Trinidad and Tobago, a member of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). The telephone numbering plan for the country is known as the National Numbering Plan. It is part of a system used for assigning telephone numbers in Trinidad and Tobago, and functions as a part of the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). It is regulated by the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, which holds responsibility for telecommunications in the country.
Numbers on the Irish telephone numbering plan are regulated and assigned to operators by ComReg.
Area codes 876 and 658 are telephone area codes in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for Jamaica.
Area code 284 is the telephone area code in the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) for the British Virgin Islands (BVI). The numbering plan area (NPA) was created in a split of area code 809 on 1 October 1997, when a permissive dialing period existed until 30 September 1998.
The dialling plan for mobile networks and new landline operators is closed; all subscriber numbers must be dialled in full. For landline numbers starting with 02, the dialling plan used to be open; the trunk digit and area code could be omitted if the caller was in the same area code as the callee. However, starting May 3, 2008, all landline numbers must be dialled in full.
The regulation of telephone numbers in Germany is the responsibility of the Federal Network Agency of the German government. The agency has a mandate to telecommunications in Germany and other infrastructure systems.
National conventions for writing telephone numbers vary by country. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) publishes a recommendation entitled Notation for national and international telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and Web addresses. Recommendation E.123 specifies the format of telephone numbers assigned to telephones and similar communication endpoints in national telephone numbering plans.
A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices for data transmission via the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or other public and private networks.
Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom have a flexible structure that reflects their historical demands, starting from many independent companies through a nationalised near-monopoly, to a system that supports many different services, including cellular phones, which were not envisaged when the system was first built. Numbers evolved in a piecemeal fashion, with numbers initially allocated on an exchange-by-exchange basis for calls connected by manual operators. Subscriber numbers reflected demand in each area, with single digit telephone numbers in very rural areas and longer numbers in cities.