What is the AT and T scam involving area codes 809 284 and 876?

Answer 1

There was a scam, popular back in the 1980's and early 1990's, in which someone would call your pager or answering machine and leave a callback number in area code 809, in some cases with a vague message about someone being in the hospital or being in jail. If you called back to the number, you would pay high international call rates (back then, quite likely in excess of $1/minute if you didn't have an international calling plan on your long-distance service). The scammer would get a cut of the revenue that the foreign telephone company received for completing its end of the call.

However, thanks to some odd quirks of technology mixed with the human tendency to exaggerate, the dollar amounts involved in the scam were inflated to claims of tens of thousands of dollars per call, even though no such case ever actually happened.

Now, in the 21st century, the rates to call the Dominican Republic (which now has area code 809 all to itself, along with overlay codes 829 and 849), the British Virgin Islands (formerly 809, now 284) and Jamaica (formerly 809, now 876) are much lower, leaving inadequate margin for the scammers to operate. That's why you now get those exciting e-mails from the widows of obscure African political or military leaders, telling you that they have decided to give all their worldly possessions to a total stranger whose e-mail address they chose at random.