Hello again. I wanted to just touch basis here and tell you all about something odd that happened. I also feel obliged to warn people of this trickery that is going about from evil people who are looking to take advantage of you like they nearly did to me. It is a phone scam.

Today I received a phone call that was an automated system saying that there was a person in prison attempting to make a collect call to me. I know of no one in my family or friends circle who would end up in jail so I did not trust it and hung up. But then they called back immediately again. My brother got the phone this time, saying it could be a friend anyways and accepted the charges.

Apparently then a man saying he was a police sargent with the jail system asked for a person whose name my brother did not know. My brother informed him this and the supposed police sargent told him he needed to call some other number and tell them to take us off the inmate call list. When my bro told me this, I was VERY skeptical and told him ask the guy more questions. My brother though has this quirk that whenever he is talking on the phone, NO ONE can speak to him and he gets mad if they try to. It mirrors the way my dad would act when on a business call and it is a difficult thing to deal with. Anyways, my brother made it known that he would not listen to me and that he believed the guy's story. But I kept pestering him until I finally got the phone. The man on the other side told me that it was important to call this number so that I could get the charges for the collect call reversed. I asked him why an officer is using the inmate call line to talk to me. He told me that it was not the inmate call line. I still was very skeptical and told him that. Then he wanted to speak to my bro again. But My brother was angry and headed off to work. The sargent told me that I needed to finish this call and call that other number and when I refused, he threatened to send a policeman over to my house. I actually told him to send the cop and that I would speak to him about this. Then I ended the call.

Next I called my local police and told them about this. they could not give me straight answers but said that they did not see any reason to send an officer over to my home.

So after that, I decided to check on the web and that's when I found out what had happened. Calling my phone company, I later confirmed this as well.


What happens is inmates in some prison have figured out how to manipulate their phone service system so that when it sends out a call, an automated system will say it is from a prison and ask if the receiver wants to accept the collect charges. When they agree, the collect bill appears on your phone account and the money from it actually goes to the inmate's bank account. Additionally, they will then tell you to call some other odd number that begins with a * and a 7 or a 2. If you call this number, that will relinquish control of your phone number over to the inmates who will then use it to make as many calls as they want, ALL COLLECT CALLS AT $5.00 EACH! Your phone line will be tied up so you can't use it and you will get an astronomically high phone bill. Though it is possible for you to have your company reverse those charges when they see the obvious fraud, the inmates have gotten the initial money from that first charge by the automated system as well as unlimited free and unmonitored phone time to help conduct their illegal activities from jail. They can mastermind drug operations and take out hits on people using your line.

Luckily, my suspicion allowed us to avoid having our phone number hijacked, but we did loose some money to these evil people for the initial collect charge my brother accepted. My phone company says they will likely be able to reverse the charge when my bill arrives, but still the harm was done and they got the money. It is infuriating, but it could have been much worse.



So, if this ever happens to you, do not accept the charges! Report it here: [link]
Do not give these terrible people the strength they need to do harm to others!


Anyways, that's what's up so far. Good luck my pals.

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