You received an IP relay call. The relay is legitimately used by people who are deaf or hard of hearing to communicate with people who aren't. The relay operator has no information about who is calling you or who you are. If you have classified ads running, most likely someone from a foreign country is trying to get you to wire them money using a bogus check. The unfortunate beauty of IP Relay is that anyone can use it anonymously, even a fraudster. There's a chance it may be a deaf person calling to inquire about your ad but most likely not. You could just take the call and ask the person calling to call you back through the "state relay" using their TTY. if you don't feel right about it, my suggestion is to be nice to the relay operator and just hang up each time you receive a relay call.
I'm selling dogs. I got the call. Here's their entire scam...
Hello,
Thanks very much for your email,you have to bear with me as I have hearing problems, hence the use of relay.The reason I am sending you this email is to let you know that the puppy is coming to be part of our family and to make final reconfirmation of the (A PUPPY) and to let you know that the puppy will be coming to be part of our family and we can take good care of the puppy, but i would also like to alert you that i will be making payment with a certified Visa Travelers Check/cashiers check. Please if you are in agreement, you can email me with your full name and address and your direct telephone number (no P.O. Box please)
(1) Full Name
(2) Home Mailing Address, NO P.O Box please
(3) Your Direct Telephone number
(4) Acceptance of my offer
(5) Final Asking Price
so I can effect payment.,am in Utah where i live with my wife and one kids,we run a store i own, but will have a friend contact you for pickup as soon as I have made payment................. I also want to alert you on the fact that you will be receiving an overdraft Visa Travelers Check/cashiers check,,,,,,,,,,,,, which will cover the money for the pickup (pickup and flying to the final destination) as well as the money to be paid to the company that will take care of the pickup and the documentation with you......... So please, as soon as you receive payment, go and cash them immediately, deduct the money that accrues to you, and send the balance to the Head Office of the company that handles the shipment via the nearest Western Union agent in your area.......................... Deduct the Western Union charges from the balance and send the remaining to shipping agent immediately,you will sending the balance to the head quarters of the company handling pickup in UNITED STATE via the nearest Western Union in your area. Deduct the Western Union charges from the balance and send the remaining to UNITED STATE . .
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Same thing! I got a call saying it was a relay and they would be talking for some person on a computer or something. But when they (the supposed person on the comp) started talking they addressed me by NAME. Then they asked if I wanted to 'talk dirty' and I just hung up. What the heck is this? I can't call back and they didn't mention a company or anything so I can't report it. I did just sign up for a auto insurance quote online about an hour ago, so I'm assuming its from that. Wow, they sure do work quick! Yeah... just weird
Received calls on 10/18/2007 at 11:14 a.m. and 11:34 a.m. I didn't answer first call, because caller-id displayed "IP Relay". On 2nd call, IP relay operator # 7112 left a message: "Hello honey, how are you doing? I wish I could talk to you. I miss you." The person making this relay call is from Accra, Ghana (the scum scammer site of the world, ranking in there only with Nigeria and Russia). About 30 minutes prior to the first call, I had received an email from a fake travel agency (New Ghana Travel Agency) requesting that I reimburse them $250.00 for "my husband's medical bills" for treatment of an infection, as he was detained in Germany for treatment. They said after they received the money, they would give him his ticket for the flight home. Of course, I responded to the email that he wasn't my husband, and I'd never acknowledged to being his wife, that I had no business dealings with him, or them, and that they'd have to work out their business dealings with him. Since he is actually the sender of the email, he used poor judgment to call me so soon after receiving it, in order to try to prime me to pay the money so he could come back to the US. These people are dangerous. They are scamming us Americans to support terrorism!
For those people who received calls regarding puppies or items for sale, this is being sent directly from Africa, most likely, although some scamming does occur here in the US and Canada. Next time, ask them to send you an email to an account that you set up via yahoo or hotmail, so that you don't have to give them your real name, or real details. Tell them you want their offer in writing via email, then once you get it, go to www.ip2location.com, and check the "X-Originating IP" address that you obtained from doing a header analysis of the email. You can use the free demo for "DB14" up to 20 times a day. If you don't know how to view full email headers in your mail program, key in "header analysis" in google bar and search. It will lead you to a site that will explain Outlook Express, hotmail, and others. For O.E., look under "view" and "layout" and check to view header in preview pane. From the search of the X-originating IP address, you will see which country your email is coming from. This will help to keep you from being scammed or sent to jail for depositing one of their fake cashier's checks (cheques). These scammers are psychopaths; they do not have the capacity to feel emotion for others. I'm also wondering if these IP-relay call centers are legit, or if they (scammers) actually fabricate these calls themselves, since they also use various telephone call centers in the US to connect their calls. I know, they have done that to me! And this is the 4th IP-Relay Call Center that has called me this week, from the same person.
I have an add running in local newspaper Poodles for sale. They didn't leave a message. But I get one of these call every time I run and add to sell my puppies. How can we get this stopped?