The 9-0-# scam

The 90# telephone scam occurs when someone calls you and, by using deceptive ways determines you to allow this person to place calls using your telephone line. Basically the person trying to scam you tells you that he/she is an employee of your phone company and that he/she needs your help identifying or fixing some technical or other problems with your line. You will usually be asked to either dial 9 0 # or to transfer this person to an outside line before hanging up. This way you're likely allowing this person to call using your telephone line.

Remember: no telephone company employee would ask you to help fixing problems with your line by requiring you to dial some digits on your phone or by asking you to transfer him/her to an outside line

What you should know:

• no telephone company employee would ask you to help fixing problems with your line by requiring you to dial some digits on your phone or by asking you to transfer him/her to an outside line
• this scam is generally aimed at business phone customers because it only works for telephone lines served by a private branch exchange (PBX) or private automatic branch exchange (PABX)

How to prevent this scam:

If you use a PBX or a PABX system, be sure to contact its manufacturer as well as the phone companies providing your ocal and long distance service to obtain information about the type of security systems available to protect your telephone system from toll fraud. Some companies also provide monitoring services to detect unusual usage of your outbound telephone line(s).