Business Phone System Uk. Phone Technician Scam ?

Edwards Finance > Phones

Q. I got this in e-mail from a friend, who is passing it on to others, and I am sure received it the same way. Sounds like meat for this NG. Any thoughts?

A. This (90#) was probably an internal function of some PABX, PBX, or Centrex-type system. The PABX where I work had a way to transfer an outside line to an external caller, but it was recently disabled (or at least I can't get to it). The UL itself (if it was a UL) is actually plausible, and there are similar scams documented. Since only a private phone system would have such a feature, a private R1 (residential) line would be an unlikely target for this particular scam. I have two phone numbers at home on an ISDN line (if you don't know, ask your local alpha-geek) I called one from the other. Picked up, dialed 9 0 # and hung up. The connection terminiated. Tried it the other way, phone #2 to phone #1. Same thing. That's because you are using a plain old telephone line. In an office environment, the phones are hooked into special networks in order to minimize the number of actual lines which the office has to purchase from the telephone company. Often they are not as innocuous as your home telephone, and are capable of functions which the user may not be aware of. In the case of the 90# trick, imagine that an executive is in a hotel and wants to call a client. Instead of paying the hotel an enormous rate, he calls his company's toll free number and gets connected to his secretary. He then asks her to connect him to one of the company long distance lines so he can make that outgoing call. In this case, it's a very valid, and useful function. If a malicious user were to call an unsuspecting secretary with no knowledge of how "that stupid phone" works, the results might not be so pleasant.

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