More on Scammers Abusing TTY Services

edward ericson writes "A more comprehensive look at IP Relay scams and their effect on relay operators, the deaf, US business and the relay providers like Sprint, AT&T and MCI. Unlike a previous piece in the AZ Star, this one shows that the problem is at least a year old, and estimates that the companies have earned at least $23 million by facilitating scams. Anyone here care to discuss IP blocking techniques?" See our previous story for more.

Comments

Learn something new every day.

[Liselle]

This is the first I've ever heard of this, but the article does a really good job of explaining the background behind it. Hefty read, though.

I would not want to be in the position of the CAs that have to put up with this. According to TFA, not only can they not legally refuse to process these calls, in most cases (no international calls), but they are also prohibited from breaking the privacy barrier. That's not something I ever considered, but it's good to know your translator is not allowed to tell the world that you just bought Viagra over the phone.

On that note, they have to translate prank calls and phone sex. Jesus.

Re:Learn something new every day.

[ShortSpecialBus]

And would also be highly illegal.

Relay operators, and the telephone companies that they are contracted through, are NOT ALLOWED to imply ANYTHING about ANY of the calls. They can't even acknowledge that prank calls DO happen, much less that fraud calls happen.

I worked as a relay operator for 9 months. It wasn't that terrible of a job, for the most part. I have made some previous posts on it in the last story, if you search for those.

In the greetings, we weren't even allowed to say that the person calling was deaf or hard-of-hearing, since anybody can use a TTY and we couldn't make any assumptions at all. Instead we said the system was commonly used by people who were deaf or hard-of-hearing. Saying the system is sometimes used for fraud would be COMPLETELY crossing the line, however.

Re:No authentication leads to abuse

[Liselle]

Um, since LostCluster has already posted in this thread, I think he'll notice the post he made in the last one that you just plagarized from him. At least one mod missed the boat already.

Original post.

Re:pranks via TTY

[camusflage]

You probably meant Phone Losers of America.

Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed.

[MarvinIsANerd]

Actually this is wrong.

It works the other way around. Most TTY's can emulate modems. The native speed for TTY's is 45 bits per second. No real computer modem can go this slow - most have 300 bits per second as their lower limit. But many TTY's have built in ASCII modems that operate at 300 bits per second. What the parent poster is saying is that you can use your computer modem to connect to the relay service using this ASCII mode (300 bits per second).

Re:Credit card companies' fraud handling is broken

[HarveyOpolis]

You DO have the power to contact the issuing bank and get the card flagged.

Call your merchant bank, give them the card number and tell them you want the phone number for the bank that issued the card.

Call the bank, ask for the security/fraud department. Talk to the sometimes unhelpful people and you'll make progress.

Re:Kill the broken service, it's not needed.

[CODiNE]

Okay, as a deaf person... let me just say nobody would miss IP-Relay calls. They've been showing up at the expos trying to get customers for the last few years... it's a PITA to use. Many don't work right with Mozilla or Safari, forcing me to use IE ... Yikes. That gives me random disconnects during calls... YAY. The big thing these days is the video-relay services... which are MUCH nicer to use... the problem is upstream bandwidth which very few ISP's provide. 256K is what Sorenson requires, but they'll give you a unit with 130K or so. Hands-On VRS uses Windows software and a webcam... etc... there's about 5 major players in the VRS game... big money. I can't imagine how much the govt pays those call centers per call, the terps get seriously nice pay, more than I could ever get in IT. Ooops, now I'm saying too much. ;-)

Anyways, there's better solutions with less problems... if you use sign language that's a better authentication than an IP... video or actual TTY's make it a lot easier for the cops to find you. I never had problems with phone TTY relay. (Except bad Engris from call workers)

Ip and Geography

[augustz]

AT&T spokesman Cruz says his company can block scam calls but would not reveal whether AT&T had ever blocked IP addresses, or for how long. He emphasized that such addresses are not tied to geography.

Wow, the AT&T folks are technically clueless it seems. Deteriming which country an ip is from is reasonably possible given the fact that IP blocks and other tools (traceroute, rdns) exist. Either they don't know what they are doing or they are in it for the money. Remember we are not talking specific geography, but country level location.

http://ip-to-country.webhosting.info/ for example.

Am I missing something. Does ni not have any IP blocks or providers or standard routes? When I ran a site it was pretty trivial to work out what country someone came from even if the block wasn't clear, have things changed?

Re:Credit card companies' fraud handling is broken

[fingerfucker]

I would strongly discourage you from seeking a place where merchants can swap info about fraudulent cards. You as a merchant are not an authoritative body to make a decision whose personal credit card information is a source of fraud. Plus, I suspect that participating in such an exchange of information would not only present an ethical issue, but it it would also place you in immediate and direct violation of your merchant agreement.

Now let me ask you a question, since I always wanted to know and you seem to be able to answer this: When you authorize AND capture, the funds are sent over to your account and that's it, no? How can you as a merchant be charged back for the amount if the purchase is a legitimate purchase (even though someone else used someone's card). I understand someone has to bear the cost of fraud, but I never expected the merchants to be the ones. You can't be blamed and held responsible for not being a cop to sniff for suspicious activity and crime. Please shed some light on this for me.

And regarding what you mention as 'merchant rating'. What is that? It's not like a 'credit' rating, is it? Does it mean that if Visa-issued cards have a large proportion of fraud, you will eventually be denied accepting Visa cards due to accepting of payments via Visa?

This seems outright wrong, so I am wondering why do you need to worry about whether the person who is ordering is legitimately using the card. Card can be charged, order can be processed, you get paid, you ship, done deal, tough luck for the guy whose card was stolen (he should've used a disposable credit card number generation service from his bank, just like Citi, MBNA, Discover and others have). Then we would see how quickly the consumers would become "educated" about their privacy.

Thanks for your response.