When was the last time you were asked whether you’d accept charges for a collect call?
In the past few years, such calls have usually featured a computerized voice that asks you to press 1 to accept or 2 to decline. This call, about a month ago, was different.
An real live operator, the kind we used to speak to years ago, asked me if I’d accept a collect call from Maria Trujillo. Not really having time to think about it, I said of course I would. After all, I had a sister named Maria Trujillo, until she got married a few months ago, and a mother with the same name, who we lost late last year.
True, I could have said, “Wait a minute—Maria Trujillo is a common name. It couldn’t be a relative of mine. And besides, my sister is right here in town.” Yet, in haste, I imagined a close relative in perilous condition and unable to pay for the phone call.
So I accepted.
I was transferred to a Spanish-speaking lady whose use of the language is far different from what one becomes accustomed to in northern New Mexico. Instead of “horale ese bro,” I heard “Senorrr Trrrujilllo.”
The speaker was not Maria Trujillo, nor did she claim to be. Instead, she explained, she was calling on behalf of Maria Trujillo, who was being “detenida en un hotel en Tijuana.” I found “detenida” an interest word choice. It means both being delayed and being detained. Now if she were being delayed it might mean only that she misplaced her hair dryer. But to be detained—that’s serious business for a woman who may or may not be a near relative. What if she’s been kidnapped?
The speaker—in a very deliberate, time-consuming delivery—repeated that I would need to call one or two long-distance numbers in order to reach Maria Trujillo. After the second repetition of each number, with the clock running, I suspected I was being duped. I hastily bade the woman adios and said to myself, “You’ve been scammed.”
I assumed that by not calling the long-distance numbers I might survive the evening without too much stress to my bank account. So, in spite of a little voice inside me saying, “But maybe there really is a relative in a hotel in Tijuana in some kind of trouble,” I decided to cut my losses and let some other of the thousands of Trujillos in the southwest share the burden and rescue a non-existent Maria.
I must have saved a bundle by not calling those numbers but spend a small fortune by having accepted the charges in the first place.
A bill for $54.14, from Zero Plus Dialing came bundled with my Qwest bill. The folks at Zero Plus said collect calls often cost even more than that. They wouldn’t tell me whether the total amount of the call went to them or whether the scum caller would be allowed to skim part of the scam scheme.
One hates to admit his gullibility and trust in humankind resulted in a lesson that —at about $13.50 a minute—talk is not cheap. Such a scam makes it harder to accept collect calls when the purpose is legitimate.
So, with proper humility and abashment, I’ve mentioned my being scammed. Does anyone out there wish to share a similar story, perhaps a scam via the mails, credit cards, internet or the infamous “pigeon drop”?
Feel free to write the Optic, or email your contribution. This column, by the way, won’t be only about consumer issues. In later columns I’d like to explore behavior, politics, education, religion, growing up in Las Vegas and other issues. And of course, you will all be invited to participate.