What Spam is this?

September 1, 2006 2:47 PM

Who are these people and why do they keep calling me? They call from Area code 323 and I've never answered in time. This Yahoo Answers says they are spammers but nobody claims to have heard what they are selling ot trying to do. Whats going on here?
posted by vacapinta to Grab Bag (22 answers total)

They are not necessarily spammers. 323 just means they're calling from a certain area in your home state (California). See here. If you post the whole number I'd like to look further into this.
posted by ifranzen at 2:51 PM on September 1, 2006

PS. Make sure you've added your number to the do not call list.
posted by ifranzen at 2:53 PM on September 1, 2006

Response by poster: Its the same number as in the Yahoo Answers post: 323-927-1550 although I also occasionally get other 323 numbers.
posted by vacapinta at 2:53 PM on September 1, 2006

My advisor just got one of them today while we were in a meeting (he disregarded it), it's kind of uncanny. (I'm in NYC and it was to his private cell phone).
posted by onalark at 2:54 PM on September 1, 2006

I got 1-2 calls every day for two weeks from a FL area code phone number. They never left a message, and when I answered, no one was there. Finally after two weeks, someone finally spoke. It was a bill collector for Macy's.

I know that doesn't answer your question. I'm just sayin, it could be anything.
posted by clh at 2:55 PM on September 1, 2006

I don't know who they are, but I get the same calls. (Personal cell phone, Maryland.)
posted by youcancallmeal at 3:10 PM on September 1, 2006

I get a call once a week or so from 1-323-927-1550. I've never answered it.
posted by chrchr at 3:10 PM on September 1, 2006

Could be someone just verifying that the number is valid to then sell to other marketers? Just a guess.

The other option is it is a company using a predictive dialer (it dials out before the next consultant is actually ready, predicting that they will end their last call and be able to cut in when you answer the phone) and their settings are bad - hence no one answering when you pick up.
posted by qwip at 3:21 PM on September 1, 2006

I suspect that the number is irrelevant. They can now fake numbers to fool your caller ID/cell phone. It's either a scam or a debt collector with a very old debt which may not even be yours.
posted by TheRaven at 3:25 PM on September 1, 2006

Response by poster: I also found the number at this website along with this comment:


Hehe... interesting, this thread has exploded since I started it 8/28, a few minutes after receiving the call.

A note to everyone: This number, 323-927-1550, is FRAUDULENT and IS NOT the true originating number. The DNC will not help you as the caller is deliberately breaking the law to begin with. These same calls having been coming for the last couple months from someone with a T1/PBX that is inserting fraudulent CID numbers. This time the CO exchange was actually valid... though that was probably a mistake by the spammer. All examples in the past (that I know of) have been NPA-NXX exchanges that are/have never been assigned to any phone company (ie. 123-456-xxxx has never been assigned by NANPA). Examples include:
209-276-5589
231-491-8865
240-861-9988
303-720-1234
323-483-6532
336-646-1234
773-703-7421

The list goes on and on. The message is "you have won a free camera, press 1 to talk with an operator". The operator will immediately hang up on you if you aren't immediately thrilled to participate in their scam. This caller is unlikely to stop until the phone companies and/or feds get off their !*&^$, pull the CO ANI/transfer records, and press charges.... Sorry, you're all screwed, welcome to the club. ;)
posted by vacapinta at 3:54 PM on September 1, 2006 [1 favorite]

It's listed on whocalled.us, too--I found whocalled.us via Google months ago after we were phone spammed--it's a pretty good resource for figuring out whether a number's from a scammer or not.
posted by jenh at 4:52 PM on September 1, 2006

Yup, got this call this morning around 9:50 EST.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 5:15 PM on September 1, 2006

I got a call from this number just now. It's happened to me several times in the past week in fact. And sometimes they leave long messages with just staticky stuff and faint voices in the background. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I was started to think I was in a horror movie. I'm in Chicago, for what it's worth.
posted by Jess the Mess at 5:39 PM on September 1, 2006

Holy crap this is creepy. So i'm sitting here in my office, reading this thread, and my work line rings (I work from home). It's 8:30pm on a Friday night of a 3 day weekend. No one from work would be calling me. I pick up, dead line.

5 minutes later it rings again, again dead line, just like a predictive dialer is when there's no available operator.

Unfortunately I don't have caller ID on that line.. if it happens again I suppose I'll *69 it.
posted by MarkLark at 5:40 PM on September 1, 2006

I got a call from the 323 number last week and yesterday to my cell phone. Judging by this response, they must be doing a good job of annoying the hell out of people.
posted by jzb at 5:42 PM on September 1, 2006

This is why it's nice to have VOIP. First, you're very likely to get a fresh number, or one that was originally allocated for cell phone use. Second, most VOIP providers have a call blocking feature that you can use to do away with annoying calls like this.
posted by kindall at 5:57 PM on September 1, 2006

Yeah, I think that I've had *one* telemarketer call my Vonage line. Ever. And it was from Comcast, trying to get me to sign up for *their* VoIP service.
My landline? When I had one, I was getting calls several times per week.
Now I get them on my work landline, but they're calling from India and basically say "fuck you" when you tell them to add you to the DNC list. They simply don't care about the laws.
posted by drstein at 6:45 PM on September 1, 2006

Ooooh, spooooky... I got our daily call from "DIRECTY BUY" as I was reading this thread.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:53 PM on September 1, 2006

i've gotten a few calls like this in the past month or so, but just the other day i got one of the long voice messages with muffled voices and it really freaked me out! I could *almost* make out what the people were saying but not quite. it went on and on and i could hear several people talking and laughing, but i couldnt figure out who it was or what they were saying. glad to hear its just some phone scam and i'm not suddenly in a horror movie!
posted by silverstatue at 7:26 PM on September 1, 2006

It *just* happened to me after reading this question. I didn't answer and there was nothing in the voicemail. Chalk it up to phonespam.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:00 PM on September 1, 2006

If you don't have caller ID you can dial *69 here in Canada to find out who was calling (maybe). It costs about fifty cents to do this. It has occurred to me that the telephone company could make a pile of money if someone with a roomful of computers made enigmatic calls. Lessee now--a million calls per day with five percent dialing *69--that's twenty-five grand per day. If you're annoyed enough to sign up for call display it's even more. Just sayin'.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 12:34 AM on September 2, 2006

Ooh..good point w-g pandemonium. That would be stooping very low but I wouldn't put it past the phone companies. Maybe they'll get found out like my gas company did last year and we'll all get $100 credits.
posted by Jess the Mess at 9:27 AM on September 2, 2006