VANCOUVER – The Better Business Bureau of Mainland B.C. (BBB) and Telus are teaming up to warn B.C. residents about a local telephone scam where an automated caller promises the recipient a free vacation if they dial ‘9.’
“This is a scam,” said BBB president Lynda Pasacreta in a press release. “If you receive a call from someone trying to convince you to dial ‘9’ for any reason, hang up. For that matter, any call from someone claiming you have won a prize in a contest you don’t remember entering is a scam. If it seems too good to be true, it is.”
Calls in this most recent scam come from outside Canada, likely using an automated dialer to push out thousands of calls a day. When a recipient picks up the phone a recorded message claims they have won a trip and asks them to dial ‘9’ to claim it or ‘8’ to be removed from marketing lists. The scam surfaced about two weeks ago, with complaints starting to come in from around British Columbia.
The BBB and Telus suspect this is a variant of a decades-old ‘dial 9’ scam. If the call comes into a business with a commercial switchboard requiring employees to dial ‘9’ to gain an outside line, going along with the request would give the caller an outside line they can use to make an expensive overseas phone call.
If the call comes into a residential line and the recipient dials ‘9’ someone comes on the line and attempts to obtain personal information from them, likely for use in identity theft. Even pressing ‘8’, which the recorded message says will remove you from their distribution list, confirms your phone number and that you are susceptible to this type of marketing, likely resulting in your name being added to other marketing lists, warns Telus.
“Scam artists are always trying something new to take your money away and violate your privacy,” said Telus chief security officer Gene McLean. “Whether they’re promising a prize, bullying you, or claiming to be a Telus technician or law enforcement official asking for assistance, the goal is the same and the solution is simple – hang up the phone.”
