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<span style="font-style: italic">Customers claim lottery scam is the cause</span>
The notorious lottery scam out of Montego Bay, St James, may have forced at least one major American telecommunications company to bar calls to Jamaica, THE STAR has learnt.
A resident of Long Beach in California, USA, on Friday said she recently made the discovery after she tried to call the island. She immediately contacted the phone company.
"I was calling from my house phone because I have (the phone company's) long-distance package and it just wouldn't go through," she said. The customer said she was puzzled none of the calls would go through as just days before she used the service without glitches. "So I called (the phone company) and asked what was happening and they told me they had a problem with Jamaica. They say Jamaicans were calling people and scamming tens of thousands of dollars from them, so they cut off my long distance."
verification process
The customer said she had to go through a lengthy verification process with the company to establish that her calling and receiving calls from Jamaica had nothing to do with the lottery scam before the service was reconnected. The customer also claimed she was not the only one affected as the company representative she spoke with said the same barring was placed on other accounts.
When THE STAR contacted the company, the director of communications said although he knew of the lottery scam "involving calls to/ from Jamaica," he could not confirm the information the customer contacted THE STAR with.
The spokesman said he was currently unaware of any barring of Jamaican calls and as such has instructed the product director and manager of the company's international long-distance service to conduct investigations into the claims. He promised a future update as soon as the matter is finalised.
profitable scam
The lottery scam came to light in 2005 and has since boomed into a multimillion-dollar business for criminals. The scam artists use illicitly obtained personal information about American citizens to con them, via telephone, into sending money under the guise that they had won a lottery.
Earlier this year, Jamaican Operations Linked to Telemarketing (JOLT) task force was launched to tackle the scam. JOLT comprises the Immigration Customs Enforcement division of the United States Homeland Security Department, the United States Embassy in Jamaica, and personnel from a number of national authorities, including the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Customs, Passport and Immigration departments, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court, and the Financial Investigations Division of the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.
The notorious lottery scam out of Montego Bay, St James, may have forced at least one major American telecommunications company to bar calls to Jamaica, THE STAR has learnt.
A resident of Long Beach in California, USA, on Friday said she recently made the discovery after she tried to call the island. She immediately contacted the phone company.
"I was calling from my house phone because I have (the phone company's) long-distance package and it just wouldn't go through," she said. The customer said she was puzzled none of the calls would go through as just days before she used the service without glitches. "So I called (the phone company) and asked what was happening and they told me they had a problem with Jamaica. They say Jamaicans were calling people and scamming tens of thousands of dollars from them, so they cut off my long distance."
verification process
The customer said she had to go through a lengthy verification process with the company to establish that her calling and receiving calls from Jamaica had nothing to do with the lottery scam before the service was reconnected. The customer also claimed she was not the only one affected as the company representative she spoke with said the same barring was placed on other accounts.
When THE STAR contacted the company, the director of communications said although he knew of the lottery scam "involving calls to/ from Jamaica," he could not confirm the information the customer contacted THE STAR with.
The spokesman said he was currently unaware of any barring of Jamaican calls and as such has instructed the product director and manager of the company's international long-distance service to conduct investigations into the claims. He promised a future update as soon as the matter is finalised.
profitable scam
The lottery scam came to light in 2005 and has since boomed into a multimillion-dollar business for criminals. The scam artists use illicitly obtained personal information about American citizens to con them, via telephone, into sending money under the guise that they had won a lottery.
Earlier this year, Jamaican Operations Linked to Telemarketing (JOLT) task force was launched to tackle the scam. JOLT comprises the Immigration Customs Enforcement division of the United States Homeland Security Department, the United States Embassy in Jamaica, and personnel from a number of national authorities, including the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Customs, Passport and Immigration departments, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court, and the Financial Investigations Division of the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service.
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