This number called my house at 1:35 am!!! When I answered it said "Haiti still needs your help." This is BS that people would call at that hour and wake my family.
We received this call at 1:58 on Monday morning. When my husband answered it, it asked him to call a certain number. Not thrilled to be awakened in the middle of the night. Caller ID said US Red Cross.
Received donation-soliciting recording at 3AM Sunday 2/21 claiming to be "Red Cross". THIS IS A HOAX! We contacted our local chapter of American Red Cross this morning (Monday) to find out how to complain about a 3AM call and they said it was a hoax and that they had "been inundated" with complaint calls.
My parents in Houston got a call from these low-life's last night at 2:30 in the morning. Unfortunately, my brother and I live in the Seattle area, so the caller-id, along with just waking up made them understandably concerned.
I happen to work for a company that provides people-finder/background check services, so I did a bit of quick digging.
This number shows up as "Red Cross Us" and the phone carrier _was_ "Pac-west Telecomm Inc - Wa".
I spoke to the NOC at Pacwest Telecomm (I happen to also have some experience in the telecommunications business) and tracked down that this phone number was ported to/taken over by another carrier- "Telecom Pacific" on 1/18/10. I can't find this carrier after a bit of searching, but I'll reach out and see if I can't find them.
I spoke to the Washington State AG's office and the consumer protection office had closed for the day. I'll try and make a point of calling them in the morning. Whatever else you might think of the AG here, he can smell a media opportunity a mile away, and I'm hopeful he will see the publicity in going after scam artists preying on people in the middle of the night.
It also seems likely that these people are forwarding calls to the American Red Cross, as that is where calls to this number terminate. However, this only works from phone lines on some carriers, not others. This implies to me that "Telecom Pacific" doesn't have their act together and is not properly announcing this # via SS7- something that makes me suspicious that they likely are not as professionally run as other carriers. I wonder if they are being taken advantage of, or are more actively involved in this behavior.