Jan 20, 2011
Here's a little more info on this situation. I have a cellphone number that has had a blocked number since I got it, in the mid 80's. There is a second phone on the same account - a fact that makes these events particularly interesting. BOTH phones have received actual calls from the 734-250-1848 number -but both mailboxes are set up to reject certain calls, so the criminals were unable to leave a message or get a vocal response. These calls arrive, back to back, on BOTH phones, making it impossible for this criminal to be calling these phones by random number dialing. Now, both of our cell numbers have begun to receive that same text message that both Eric and Tiffany reported - again, within minutes of each other. Both of the criminal's phone numbers are the same as Eric/ Tiffany reported - and it appears that they are both cell numbers. When I attempted to call back, no one answered - likely due to the fact that my number would appear as a blocked number.
CSCU refers to Community Services Credit Union, so I contacted the head of the credit union. They are aware of this scam and have had actual customers who have had their credit card info fraudulently scammed, in this way. They took all of the data and are/ have been investigating the matter with proper legal authorities. I decided to take it a step further and contacted both the State of Michigan Attorney General and the FBI/ Detroit office, myself.
One more thing - if you are tempted to respond to any text that lands on your phone by mistake - be sure to have the automatic number stamp feature (on your outgoing texts) set to BLOCK the identity of your number. This means that your phone will NOT identify your number, as being the source of the text answer. In this way, and IF you have truly received a text by mistake, your "you have the wrong number" answer text will not provide your true number to that person who sent the original text.
Now, I need to determine how the caller got BOTH cell numbers on this account.... So, if anyone who has received these text calls is serviced by Metro PCS (and more specifically, their Mobileposse solictation group!), please post a note to that effect ASAP. Thanks!