Scam Artists Threatening IP Relay Services?
Relay operators themselves are speaking out, discussing on forums, quitting their jobs or being fired from them. Operators are upset at having to handle so many fraudulent phone calls - estimates of fraud calls are as high as 90 percent according to the aforementioned articles. However, the rules of being a relay service operator do not allow them the luxury of being able to hang up on a suspicious fraud telephone call, and the calls must be confidential.
Baltimore City Paper did a long article on the issue. This article mentions a message board, "Nigerian Scams Using IP Relay."
MSNBC.com did a short article on the issue.
Slashdot had a lot of emotional commentary in response to an article in the Arizona Daily Star:
This is something that the deaf/hoh community needs to be concerned about (you can talk about it on the forum in the Beware of Con Artists on the Phone System Now thread that was started by an About Deafness forum member), because it threatens if not the survival of internet relay services, then the acceptance of internet relay services by the hearing community. Leonard Hall, a columnist for the Olathe News, wrote "FCC regulations requires all relay calls be made and be kept confidential. It is a dumb rule if the operators know the calls being made are for fraudulent purposes and cannot do anything about it." (Text-based relay services, not video relay services) A few worrisome quotes from these articles:
"I know of several deaf people that were turned down in their efforts to make purchases via IP Relay because some big box stores, having been burned, no longer accept such orders." - Barry Strassler in Baltimore City Paper
"My wife got blown off by the manager at OfficeMax.." - Mark Drolsbaugh in Baltimore City Paper
"..one day, he participated in $40,000 worth of scam calls." - statement by Robert Grodevant in MSNBC.com article.
"The bad news is that some merchants are becoming conditioned to think all relay calls are prank calls." - MSNBC.com article
It is definitely increasing the cost of operating relay services online. According to MSNBC.com, the Telecommunications Relay Service Fund nearly ran out of money. The FBI has gotten involved.
Comments
We’ve received numerous relay calls and they were all easily discernible as scams. Every one wanted overnight shipping on unusually large $ purposes. We nolonger accept relay calls because we’ve only ever had scam calls that are waste of our time and resources.
I am no longer accepting these calls. Those that use the service has access to email – they can email me direct. The calls are a waste of our time and resources. Scammers have abused a good idea.
There is a brand new IP Relay scam site run by operators. I thought I should let you know because the forum you have posted here takes you to our old forum which has been mostly abandoned. Our new, active board is:
http://relayscams.aimoo.com
The Original Message Board for Operators and the Deaf has not been abandoned and we encourage all Operators, the Deaf and Law enforcement to visit our message board.
http://www.ip_relay_scams.aimoo.com
The relay centers avoid doing everything possible to prevent this fraud because to them fraud = money. Fraud calls are worth as much as real calls! The fraud primarily occurs outside the country and could easily be blocked but the company refuses! People were mad about Michael Vick?!?!? Relay calls are processed everyday by the THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of people frauding for animals –mainly dogs. The animals go to inhumane housing facilities where they are bred and resold. Over 50% of ip-rlay calls are fraud. I am an operator this is not an exaggeration.
The newspaper I work at gets 2 or more of these a week to advertise free dogs. We insist on a copy of their drivers license and a verifiable PHYSICAL address, or we refuse to even take the ad. Works every time.
I also work for a newspaper and 100% of the relay calls we get now are scams. Years ago we used to take relay calls from real customers, but not anymore, they are probably all placing ads via our website, if at all. The scams are all for dogs, cars or bogus jobs. They provide names & addresses of real people and businesses; we have to verify every one. We usually prevent these scam ads from ever running, but it takes time to verify this stuff, meanwhile legitimate customers are stuck on hold. The criminals have taken a good service & turned it into a vehicle for fraud.
I get less than 10 legitimate calls per day because of these scam artists. It’s very demoralizing and it’s getting harder and harder to detach myself. That’s why I made a twitter and a plurk account. Hopefully to inform people about relay and warn them about fraud..
http://www.plurk.com/relayopr