I Dialed a Wrong Number and Stumbled into International Phone Fraud
I have a related story. I was in North America, looking for an apartment in Australia. At the time I'd buy phone cards for long distance calls, and they'd always work fine.<p>So, I used the phone card, and tried to call someone about an apartment that looked great. According to the advertisement, it was a woman that owned the apartment and she had an extra bedroom she was renting. I called, and a man answered. It went like this...<p>Him: Hello<p>Me: Hi, I was calling about your apartment for rent online.<p>// Dogs barking in the background fairly loudly.<p>Him: Sorry, what was your name?<p>Me: John Doe<p>Him: It's difficult to hear, could you hold on a moment?<p>Me: Sure<p>// He puts down the phone, and it sounds like he's taking the dogs outside or to another room. In the background a TV is playing. I'm getting annoyed, but he finally returns 4 or 5 minutes later.<p>Him: Are you still there?<p>Me: Yes<p>// A woman starts talking to him from inside the house.<p>Him: Sorry, just give me one more moment.<p>// He starts talking and arguing with her. I wait two minutes, then hang up.<p>After the call, I was frustrated. The apartment sounded great online, but what a nightmare; dogs barking, people yelling at each other, and they wasted 10 minutes of my time. So, I moved on, and tried calling others. Sometimes I'd get through to the person, sometimes I'd get errors about not being able to reach the number. Fast forward a week, I changed my plans, and started looking at apartments in another Australian city, hundreds of kilometers from the first. I call for an apartment, and guess what I hear? That's right, the same recording from above. Now, I was confused. I didn't even expect it was a recording the first time. But, how was I getting the recording from a completely different number, in a different city? I called back, because I was getting curious at that point. To my surprise, someone answered the second time, and it was actually the person from the advertisement I was trying to call. It became obvious at that moment that someone in the middle was hijacking calls, and trying to keep people on the line as long as possible.