05-10-2017, 01:40 AM
Slightly off-topic anecdote: Couple years ago, I sold a camera on craigslist and stupidly put my phone number in the ad.
The camera sold fine, local guy, paid cash, no problems. Then a few months later, the calls started. Computerized voice: "This is ____ County Prison, and an inmate is trying to reach you, press 1 to enter your credit card number and accept the call" or somesuch nonsense. I got calls from about 20 different prisons around the US. But always the same recorded voice.
It got so bad I was getting between 5-10 of these calls a day. Couldn't keep up with blocking the numbers. So I went on a fact finding mission.
It seems phone numbers get 'collected' by inmates from internet sources (like CL)...the numbers get put on a list and sold/passed around to other inmates, and so on and so on. Apparently some of these inmates spend large parts of their day going down the lists hoping they can hook a sucker into believing they have an incarcerated relative who needs money wired for bail.
But wait! There's a middleman, of course! Because these various prisons around the country all contract their inmates' outgoing phone calls through the same damn corporation. Yeah, surprise, surprise, corporate America gets their cut. The receiver of the call has to pay something like $20 bucks for the first minute plus a 2-3 bucks for each addt'l minute. The BBB has thousands of complaints...from people who were legitimately trying to talk to an inmate. Their cards were getting charged for say 10 minutes, but the call was dropped after the first 2...or its never connected...etc etc.
Anyway, the conclusion is that I finally got the number of the HQ of this call forwarding corporation, called them and waited on hold for 30 minutes, and finally was able to get my number blocked. The operator sounded like he fielded these complaints all day, every day. He even warned me, now if anyone you know really does go to prison, they won't be able to call you, are you sure you want to do this?
OK its been 3 years since I had my number 'blocked' and all is quiet, I will give them credit for that much. But I'm definitely being more cautious about where my phone number goes now.
The camera sold fine, local guy, paid cash, no problems. Then a few months later, the calls started. Computerized voice: "This is ____ County Prison, and an inmate is trying to reach you, press 1 to enter your credit card number and accept the call" or somesuch nonsense. I got calls from about 20 different prisons around the US. But always the same recorded voice.
It got so bad I was getting between 5-10 of these calls a day. Couldn't keep up with blocking the numbers. So I went on a fact finding mission.
It seems phone numbers get 'collected' by inmates from internet sources (like CL)...the numbers get put on a list and sold/passed around to other inmates, and so on and so on. Apparently some of these inmates spend large parts of their day going down the lists hoping they can hook a sucker into believing they have an incarcerated relative who needs money wired for bail.
But wait! There's a middleman, of course! Because these various prisons around the country all contract their inmates' outgoing phone calls through the same damn corporation. Yeah, surprise, surprise, corporate America gets their cut. The receiver of the call has to pay something like $20 bucks for the first minute plus a 2-3 bucks for each addt'l minute. The BBB has thousands of complaints...from people who were legitimately trying to talk to an inmate. Their cards were getting charged for say 10 minutes, but the call was dropped after the first 2...or its never connected...etc etc.
Anyway, the conclusion is that I finally got the number of the HQ of this call forwarding corporation, called them and waited on hold for 30 minutes, and finally was able to get my number blocked. The operator sounded like he fielded these complaints all day, every day. He even warned me, now if anyone you know really does go to prison, they won't be able to call you, are you sure you want to do this?
OK its been 3 years since I had my number 'blocked' and all is quiet, I will give them credit for that much. But I'm definitely being more cautious about where my phone number goes now.