DnA 5-6: News from the Elite GTE security force
What follows is a press release from GTE of California. It talks about Scam or Social-Engineering type fraud, and shows how clever those nasty phone phreaks can be. The scams themselves have obviously been overused to the point of being noticed by the alert fraud-squad at GTE, so their use would not be e recommended.
GTE California
NEWS One GTE Place
Thousand Oaks Ca 91362-3811
For Release August 12, 1993
Summary: CON ARTISTS DEVISE NEW PHONE-CALLING SCAMS; GTE WARNS CUSTOMERS: DON'T DISCLOSE PIN NUMBERS OR OKAY CERTAIN 3RD-PARTY CALLS.
(Thousand Oaks, Calif) - Con Artistsare putting a new spin in phone fraud, GTE California warns its customers today.
"We want our customers to be on guard against people misrepresenting themselves as GTE employees, long distance phone company employees or officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Federal Communications Commission," said Lou Banas, GTE's local public affairs manager.
"These imposters are calling our customers and asking for their personal identification numbers (PIN) for their calling cards. And in some cases, these con artists are asking customers to approve third-party calls under the pretense of catching phone-fraud 'crooks.'"
"Once the customer gives out this confidential information, the con artist begins charging calls to the customers calling card or phone account."
Banas said phone-fraud artists continue to be inventive. However, customers can help thwart these imposters by using common sense.
"First, don't give out your PIN number to anyone except an operator, and only when you've initiated that call," he said. "GTE will never ask a customer for his or her calling card number."
"Don't approve third-party billed calls for anyone other than family members, or someone you know or can identify. And if we (GTE) truly are conducting an investigation, we alread have the customer's billing and proprietary phone information, so we will not ask for it over the phone."
