Arlin Sample, owner of Automotive Services of All Sorts in Greeley, is just one of thousands of business owners on the receiving end of a TTY — or telephone relay service — call that was misused by a scammer. These calls, intended to allow the hearing-impaired to communicate via telephone, rely on an operator who relays a typed message from the caller to the business. By law, the operator is not allowed to disclose the origin of the call.
And that’s why it’s so popular with scammers.
TTY scams have been around for some time now and show no signs of abetting. In fact, the BBB nationwide continues to be flooded with complaints from businesses getting hit by TTY scams.
Sample, a BBB Accredited Business, was aware of the scam and immediately recognized the calls received within a month of each other. The first time he shut the caller down immediately. The second time he played along. He even asked — and got — the caller’s e-mail address. And then he called his BBB.
“His main story was that he had a car out-of-state that his uncle bought for him and that needed substantial brake work. He was going to have the car shipped to my shop to have it done,” Sample said. And the caller said his shipper wouldn’t accept his Discover credit card, so he asked Sample to accept a $3,500 charge for the work, take $500 as down payment for the brake job and send a $3,000 check to the shipper.
Classic TTY scam.
All that needs to be done is to insert a different name of a business and a different product or service. Businesses in northern Colorado have received calls requesting high-dollar golf clubs, flagpoles, paint and carpet. All of the “orders” have been for large quantities to be delivered a considerable distance, sometimes overseas.
Your BBB offers the following advice to help you identify TTY scams:
- If the customer is using a TTY relay operator, ask the customer for his/her full name, address and telephone number.
- Ask the customer to provide the name of the issuing bank and its toll-free customer service number as printed on the back of all credit cards.
- Ask for the three or four digit Card Verification Code found near the account number on the back or front of a credit card. If the card number is stolen, this number will be unknown.
- Tell the customer you will check with the bank and call them back. When you do that, keep good notes. Verify all information the customer provides. If a customer objects, explain that these procedures are for their protection as well as yours.
- If the customer still objects to providing any of the above information, abandon the conversation and tell him you are not prepared to do business this way.
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