Feb 13, 2009
Unpublished, land line in Beverly Hills or Los Angeles, CA provided by carrier 01 Communications--CA. If you got a call from this number and don't know what it's about, then someone in your household has gotten a return call from a scammer who wants a large sum of money wired and you need to intervene: Ads appear nationwide, from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale and from Maine to San Francisco, loads of places in-between and even in Hawaii or spanish-language versions. The ads appear in free publications such as backpage.com or craigslist.org (the scammers are too greedy to pay for advertising). The ads include a toll-free land line for incoming calls only to press 1, 2 or 3 if interested in (1) an escort driver job, (2) owning your own escort agency, or (3) becoming an escort. A long, recorded message plays, describing too-good-to-be-true earnings and going into great detail with plausible explanations of why a large sum of money needs to be wired first. By the time that the easy-money opportunity is failing to materialize, such as by no one showing up to meet & greet at a public place, the wire transfer cannot be cancelled because the money has already been picked up, perhaps without even showing ID, if the secret question/answer mechanism for identification purposes was used. The ad, recording, or both, says to call another number, such as 310-409-8890, not toll-free, on which line a live person tells where to wire money, such as to Durham, NC. The scammers hope to be convincing on the recording before a call to the 2nd number because the live person only wants to close the deal on the wire transfer of money, using such advertising language as, "do not call unless you are ready to start asap! as early as this evening and you are prepared to fully comply w/ all aspects of company policy" The scammer becomes impatient easily (heaven forbid he should have to engage in selling the proposed scam), using pressure tactics, such as rushing, giving reasons why time is of the essence, wanting a call back each step of the way, even calling your number before the scammer can call back (hence, the strange call perhaps answered by another family member), all designed to rush into wiring money to a stranger before stopping to think or research. The money only buys bad memories of being fooled out of a lot of cash. I lost about $1,000.00. No use wasting more money on tracing the numbers either, as I did, because the numbers will change (11 phones numbers noted so far since last fall).