UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 18, Page 14
February 4, 1993
Be alert for telephone scam

     Telephone Services is alerting the University community to a telephone
scam that has been directed at other colleges.
     In this scam, an employee receives a collect call, and the caller
explains that he or she is either a paraplegic or is calling from a prison
and is unable to redial the phone. They ask to be transferred, and while
the call is being transferred, a computer locks on to the phone line
enabling the caller to call anywhere in the world, while the charges are
billed to the University. The names the callers have used are John,
Jonathan and Anthony. There is no indication that this has occurred at
Delaware, but Princeton University had one call to England that lasted over
three hours.
     To prevent being taken by this scam, do not accept collect calls from
unfamiliar callers. If a collect caller asks to be transferred, say it is
not possible to transfer calls.