Utility providers in Bristol Bay warn telephone customers not to provide information to telephone solicitors. DILLINGHAM: Some customers of the Nushagak Cooperative have reported what appear to be scam calls on their home telephones.
Dillingham resident Tim Sands says he’s received two calls, one of them last Saturday afternoon.
“I got a call and there was a distant click, a long pause like in the old satellite phone days, and then a guy with a pretty distinct Indian accent comes on the phone and wants to know about my Microsoft Windows operating system computer. And I’m immediately suspicious and ask him, 'Well what kind of computer do I have,' because the only people who should know about my computer are the people who sold it to me. And he just kept saying, ‘Well, it’s your Microsoft Windows computer,’ and so I hung up on the guy.”
Sands got another suspicious call at 6 a.m. Tuesday, from someone claiming to be from 'Medical Compensation Services':
“I just told him ‘It’s 6 o’ clock in the morning, why are you calling me at 6 o’clock in the morning?,’ and he said ‘Oh I’ll call you later’ and hung up. But again, the same kind of long pause and delay, and definitely foreign accent."
Sands' telelphone number is on the Do-Not-Call Registry, and is unlisted in the phone book.
Nushagak Cooperative recommends anyone receiving similar calls to hang up immediately, and reminds people to never provide personal information, or access to computer or email, to unwanted telephone solicitors. Nushagak says they’ve had about a handful of complaints about these type of calls recently.
The Bristol Bay Cooperative serving customers in Naknek and King Salmon tells KDLG News that at least one customer complained of a similar scam recently. That apparently happened just before the election, when the volume of survey and campaign-related calls was high.