Scam Alert

A Mutual 6 resident called to report that a friend almost fell for the so-called “90# Telephone Scam,” a legacy phone scam using the 90# buttons on business landline telephones. It is still around, targeting phones served by a private branch exchange (PBX) or private automatic branch exchange (PABX). According to the Federal Communications Commission, someone calls claiming to be a telephone company employee investigating technical problems with your line or checking up on calls supposedly placed to other states or countries from your line.

The caller asks you to aid the investigation by either dialing 90# or by transferring the call to an outside line before hanging up. By doing this, you may be enabling the caller to place calls that are billed to your telephone number.

Telephone company employees checking for technical and other types of telephone service or billing problems would not call and ask a subscriber to dial a specific series of numbers before hanging up.

Telephone company employ- ees would not request subscribers to connect the caller to an outside line.

These types of calls are used to trick subscribers into taking actions that will enable the caller to place fraudulent calls.

If your place of business uses either a PBX or a PABX, your company telecommunications manager should contact the equipment manufacturer and the telephone companies that provide you with local and long distance service and ask for information about security systems available to protect your telephone system from toll fraud.

You should also consider asking about any monitoring services that help detect unusual telephone system usage.