MI-80

I got a phone call on my personal cell phone from that number (208-991-1196) yesterday and one on my work (VoIP) phone today. My personal number is unpublished and my work phone is only published to our customers and on our website (ok, so that one is generally available). Either way, they two are not linked, so I have never had a trouble with spam/telemarketing before now on my cell phone or my work phone really. The call, which appears to be widespread after a little bit of Googling, is a pre-recorded message in Spanish which says something along the lines of "You have won $500; press 1 to collect!" Of course I just hung-up. Upon calling the number back, an automated system answers informing you this is a "travel related call" and offering for you to enter your number to be removed from their database. For some reason I am very skeptical if you will be removed or not. Overall, it seems a very poorly designed fraud; calling random numbers through a primarily English speaking country and spouting off an obviously false Spanish message. The phone number is registered to http://www.bandwidth.com/, who apparently offers VoIP among other services. I called them a moment ago (800-808-5150) and lodged a complaint. Their customer service seems good; after only a prompt or two I was speaking with a easily understandable and polite young woman in roughly 30 seconds. She (apparently) typed up a quick report and said she would pass it on, but who knows what will happen in the end. This is a new fraud to me (cell numbers being well guarded for the longest time), and I am curious how they obtained their number list. Perhaps they are just dialing randomly. Google the number and check out the many similar complaints. It is sad, but then again, if 1% of people they call fall for it...it is worth it to them, is it not? Therefore, the real lesson is please people, be smart and ignore scams. I like my sleep, so please do your part to stop Spanish phone scammers from calling me at six in the morning! Update 2009-02-12 20:54: The scammer actually left a brief four-second voicemail on my work line. It appears it got cut-off, and I believe it is simply saying "$500 dollars [see update below]," though I do not speak Spanish, so I am relying on a translation that I had done over the phone via someone who could barely hear the message! Anyone with a better ear for Spanish please feel free to correct me. You can grab the message below. I would also love to be notified by anyone who obtains a complete recording of the message. Update 2009-02-14 03:56: Per the comment below it appears the capture states "[inaudible] your money...," which matches what others are reporting. Please note that I have still not obtained a full copy of the message to verify it, so the assumption of its full contents is based off the consensus of several others who received the call and speak Spanish. Since no one has caught it on tape human memory is a factor of course, so specifics may not be exact. (Please right-click and select "Save Target As..." to save it to your computer; simply clicking on it like a normal link produces an error.)

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Scam Voicemail.wav	62.54 KB