Has anyone ever recieved a relay call that wasn't a scam? - Page 1

I have my pups advertised, and as it goes I usually get just one relay call from the
operator, they explain to me how relay works, but the last relay call was from a
scam artist, that's going to send his agent to pick up the puppy,and so on & so on.....

now, I just tell the operator that I would like to decline the call,
I don't mean to discriminate against anyone, but I can see that 
the calls are from far away, and I do not ship my pups to begin with.
My last call was from Sunnyvale CA.

I can do reverse phone #'s with   whitepages.com

It gives you some idea who's calling you.
So far, I have just had 2 different relay calls.

Has this happened to any of you guys???

I got one a few months ago. When I questioned too intensely they hung up on me.

Thank you Lord!

SS

I just responded to this in the other thread about  "beware of these women" 

I just recieved one of those calls yesterday.  

I said I need ,  a name , address, telephone number, and email address,  

She said the same thing ,  " the call was dropped" 

First thing to my mind was,   Scam!  

Then a second thought ran through my head,   maybe it is really someone that needed to use a relay system.  Some one who couldn't  hear or Speak.  

But,  none the less my first thought came right back , when the call was dropped when I asked for all the info. 

It is really a shame this is the kind of crap that goes on.!!

When I was in Hollister a couple of weeks ago, Willi and Julie Ortner got the same phone call, the relay gave the guy's email address and he was asking for information about a pup, we sent him an email describing what was available, and he emailed back the whole cashiers check blah blah blah with an address in NY.

Julie had never heard about these scams, it was terrible to see how these people are still scamming unsuspecting people.  I explained to Julie and Willie the scam and how they would send a money order or a cashier check which would appear to be correct, but once it was cashed it would come back as fraudulent, and then Willi and Julie would be responsible for the money!

They could not understand how a bank can cash a fake cashiers check, and it's sad, but it does happen!

These people SUCK!

A true relay call call will come from the phone company. They will identify themselves by first name say that they are with the phone company. They will let you know it's a relay call, ask if you are familiar with the procedure and explain it to you if you're not. They will also identify the caller on the other end. Everything is routed through the phone company's TTY system. If it's a scam, you can find out for sure by requesting the relay operator to identify the caller or request that they call back in five minutes. A scammer won't identify the caller or won't call back. You can also just hang up. A true relay call will call you right back. If the call is lost on the other end, you are still connected to the relay operator. The operator will call the original caller back and reconnect you if it's a real call.

Thanks  mobjack, 

that is helpful info.   I am quite aware of scams, but I had never experienced a relay call before this incident either.   I would most definately caught on to the " let me send you extra money"   scam. 

They play on ads in the larger papers  and my feeling is,,itf it were a real deaf caller,,,theycould get a friend or family member to speak for them...the scammer cant be identified if u dont hear his or her voioce....thats why they do that then switch to email.....

In person, people say no immediately...there are still  a lot of people that still believe these scammers and do get taken...

This issue was actually on Dateline a few weeks back.  One of the big issues of terrorism and the American Disabilities Act.

The ADA privacy act requires the relay operator to keep ALL content private regardless of what they hear.  If they hear that a murder is going to take place, too bad, under the ADA they can't do anything about it.  Unfortunately crooks and terrorists are using this loophole to communicate with no implications!

Difficult decisions to make, do you report a crime and infrige on the rights of someone or give them their rights and say nothing?  At this point it is law to say nothing.  Maybe someday it will be different for different circumstances, but who knows!

In the mean time what out for those calls!

The call we got was a legit relay call, he gave his name and email address and asked to communicate that way, we sent the first email thinking he was a true hearing impaired citizen, after the email asking us to keep extra money from a cashier's check, I emailed back stating we needed to receive only the amount for the puppy and preferred paypal or a personal check, we never heard back from him again.  This guy used the name Peter.