PHONE SCAM WARNING

The Ohio State Highway Patrol is alerting the public to a phone scam that allows scammers access to control the phone number of another person’s calls and ultimately their phone bill. This warning comes after a Central Ohio woman received a call from someone impersonating a law enforcement officer asking her to call a number beginning with *72.

Star-72 is a custom call-forwarding feature. When a customer dials *72 followed by a telephone number, it activates the call-forwarding feature causing all their incoming calls to ring to the number dialed after *72. The scammer is then able to accept all collect or third-party calls on the customer’s number while telling legitimate callers that they have the wrong number. The customer will get charged for all calls that the scammer accepts on the forwarded number.

The U.S. Department of Justice notes that this scheme will only work if the customer has previously signed up for the call-forwarding option with their service provider. Star-72 is the most commonly used sequence for call-forwarding; however some phone service providers may use a different sequence.

The Patrol is asking anyone who receives a phone call requesting them to input a strange code into their phone, to hang up and report it by contacting your local law enforcement agency.