Warning/Attention sml bz owners around Middle TN!

[seez52]

If you own a small business in or around Middle Tn be on the lookout for a telemarketer call wanting to save you money on your credit card processing payment fees. They will call and try to set up a personal visit with their representative in order to go over your account history with the premise of saving you some money. So far it's been mostly home repair type businesses such as small companies who replace windows, do roofing, carpet cleaning, mold mitigation, cleaning or other such type services.

 

This telemarketer has stolen, spoofed, hijacked my business phone number to make these calls, so the caller ID looks like the call originated from my phone. In many cases the call is made and the recipient does not answer, but then later returns the call thinking that they may have missed out on a customer call. Well guess who they call? Me. Over the past two days I have received nearly 400 of these missed call, call backs. It has basically caused a huge denial of service on my end to the extent that we no longer have a business phone that is usable. I have had to route all my calls to voice mail with an explanation of the circumstance. I'm guess this is a complete scam since if it were legit they wouldn't be using my phone number to make this happen.

 

If you have had one of these calls, or get a telemarketing call such as this and can provide details on the originator of same please PM me. I would sure love to arrange an in person interview with their representative. I am working on one lead currently. I have contacted my phone carrier and they really have zero ability to fix this. Apparently it is fairly easy these days to make calls and use someone else's phone number for the caller ID.

[KKing]

Geez man that's scary. I'll warn my dad. I hope you or the authorities are able to catch this sob

[bersaguy]

Wish you luck on this cause I know it has to be very aggravating for you and for who ever they call. You you do by any chase get a meeting with one of their representatives make sure you make it a memorable one for them before you call the Leos to cart off whats left....... :up:  :up: 

[Ted S.]

Spoofing on that level...lets hope the person doing this is not in some other country. If so, it may be easier to get another number. But that still entails a lot of work implimenting such a change.

 

I would call your phone company if you haven't already to see if the spoofing is showing up in your outboung call history. It shouldn't, but in the rare case that it does, you may be able to find the source a lot faster.

[seez52]

The only resolution the phone company could offer was changing my number. Of course that's a real pain not to mention an expense with marketing materials etc. that are out there. I am hoping they will eventually move on to another number or get finished with this area. If we do get to meet, it won't be one they soon forget.

[Ted S.]

From my experience, spoofers use a list of numbers.

 

It will be taking a risk of expence either way. Cost of possible loss of business for waiting it out, or cost of implimenting a new number, including updating marketing materials (which would also take time).

 

Spoofers are complete assholes. They are basically a hybrid of thieves and harassers in a way.

 

Hopefully ths is resolved sooner rather than later.

[seez52]

not quite as bad today, I've just turned the ringers off so I don't even hear calls anymore. I couldn't get anything done for hearing it.