Collect Call Scam?

Last night the phone rang and it was a recorded message telling me I had an incoming collect call from the Orleans Parrish Louisiana Prison from ... I hung up before I got the name. I don't know anyone in the Orleans Parrish Jail. I don't think I do. Is this some kind of scam to reverse charges on outgoing calls from jail?

or we can hope. That's freaky!

:shrug:

of the caller before hanging up.

We used to get calls from our county jail - I think our number was similar to somebody else's. Anyhow, I would stay on the line and hope the person could hear me speaking over the recording that they'd reached a wrong number.

I doubt there was a scam. Probably just an unfortunate misdial.

it's mostly fake businesses.

while we lived in GA about eight years ago. My daughter was ten at the time and would get scared and hang up. This happened every day for a week at about 5 p.m. We called Sprint and they blocked all calls from prisons for us. I think it is a scam because when we called Sprint they said that sometimes prisoners get someone's phone number and call collect just to be annoying or to get back at a prisoner they don't like. Just hanging up did not help in our case.

They had the contract for the prison system in Arizona and she said they had to deal with HUNDREDS of calls from inmates trying to call people collect. Often calls were to family/friends. Many times, those people went onto a list of people who would block calls from the prisons.

A lot of the attempted collect calls would just be to random numbers because inmates had no one left who would talk to them anymore. There were prisoners who would resort to being abusive to the MCI operators when nobody they knew would accept their calls (possibly due to abuse) anymore. And, yes, a lot of the calls were abusive or attempts to make contacts on the outside for friends who were on the 'outside' but working with some inmates on criminal enterprises.

Good idea NOT to accept collect calls from strangers.

I heard that here in MO, prisoners had/have a scam going. They would place a collect call. If anyone accepted the charges, the caller would not hang up at the end of the call and, supposedly, the caller could then dial another number and that call would also be charged to the original person who accepted charges for the other call.

forced my hand last night. I'd heard something along those lines some time ago. I doubt very seriously I know anyone in the Prison. Thanks for that reminder. Not too long ago, my wife took a call from the "MS State Troopers Assn" and sent them 10 bucks. Shortly thereafter we got a letter from the real Assn that said they don't ever solicit over the phone. Some people spend so much time scamming.

and, not knowing anyone in prison, I refused to accept charges. Then I worried for weeks that maybe some remote relative was in bad trouble and needed help desperately and I'd failed to help. I was really relieved to finally hear about that scam.

I didn't know those trooper association calls were a scam! We get calls from "them" every now and again. They always sound like such jerks that we've never sent them anything (plus my theory is that if troopers are not paid enough, the state should raise their pay, and raise taxes if necessary, so that everybody pays their fair share anyhow). Thanks for the info. I'll not feel guilty about refusing next time!:thumbsup:

last year and got into it with him telling him that they supported Haley Barbour for Governor, they got their man in place so why do they need to call tax payers for more money? He couldn't believe I was a liberal, told him I was a Navy retiree as well. No more bucks to "MS State Troopers Assn."

Hang up when you get these. Oddly, I used to get these from the Lafayette Parish jail when I lived in Lafayette. Maybe this is a Louisiana thing.

If you accept the call, they will three-way to another person, on your tab.

But, since I don't know anyone I would actually want to talk to in prison, so I would just refuse the charges.

I thought they had all those destroyed. However, such a charming little picture of a charming little tyke just warms the hearts of "conservatives" and give rush ammo to talk about what a down to earth guy he is. Sorry for getting off topic on a thread I started.

nt