My son's phone received a call from 473-405-0178 earlier today. I am so glad the asked me who it could possibly be before just answering it. I remembered reading an article on how police stations were warning customers about 473 area codes and the Genada scam.

Got one ring from this number on New Years Day and I called back & got a message that I cannot return the call ?

Estas personas no me dejan en paz

Dang it I called it back, it was busy tone, should I call Verizon tell them

I got the call at 3:49 am New Year's Eve/day I  with AT&T

1:45 a.m. January 2, 2014. Verizon.
Glad I searched this and got the info.  Also glad my ringtone is music so wasn't that annoying.  Jerks!

rang twice hung up when I answered

Missed call from 473-520-9734 at 2:45 AM 1-2-2014

Rang once. Hung up. 5am

I missed the call but my number is a Seattle number and rhe call was in middle of night on 1/1

Dunno who this is

Just got it too happy I'd check the site before good information from above

DONT RETURN THE CALL!

Don't ANSWER! Will charge you 1000s in cell phone fees!

missed call at 9:47 pm pst.  so glad I checked the number before I called back.

Who is this

I got a call from 473-520-9734. It was early morning and I didn't answer. Tried to call it back later but I was informed I didn't have enough money on my phones account to complete it. I am with Boost mobile through sprint. 1/1/14

Spam call. Called 1030am EST. No voicemail left. If you call back, you just here music.

Just got the same call, rang once.

Got same call at 4:25 p.m. 473-520-9734 rang once. On sprint 1-1-2014.

unwanted call on new years day

I just got a call from this number also 12:07pm eastern time

Call came in at 9:31 this morning, January 1. Didn't answer. No message left. I'm with AT&T.

Got it at 8:30 am Eastern time, New Year's Day.  Thank goodness I checked here (I did notice the missed calls thing said Grenada, which made me suspicious). They obviously know good times to call and piss people off.

I just Got this number calling me at 445 am eastern time on January 1st

(473) 520-9734
Grenada

473 "AREA CODE" WARNING -- DO NOT RETURN DIAL ONE RING CALLS RECEIVED FROM AREA CODE 473 !!!!!!

In the current variant of this scam, the caller doesn't have any intention of talking to you. All the scammer wants is for you to get upset enough about the late night call that you return the call, never even noticing that it is from a foreign country outside the reach of US or Canadian laws. When you return the call (at international rates), there may also be a big surcharge added to your phone bill that gets passed along to the scammer.

What appears to have been the original version of the scam surfaced about 11 years ago in Japan and is known as the "Wangiri scam:"

From Japan Times
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2002/08/21/n ... r/#.Ur2543-9KSN

From the Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/1367988

A few U.S. news organizations, but not many, have picked up on this latest variant:

KPVI, Pocatello, ID TV report on Grenada phone scam
http://youtu.be/eSp9tY1gBW8

From Toledo News Now
http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/23695832/b ... huge-phone-bill

I don't think this problem is limited to or has anything to do with Verizon.  The same problem has been reported on other carriers, I believe, but Verizon Wireless appears to be the biggest carrier, so they get the most calls.  Verizon has a discussion board set up with at least one thread concerning "473" calls:

https://community.verizonwireless.com/message/1035009

It appears that at least Verizon is devoting some resources to stop these callers or at least refund some or all of the charges for people who call these numbers.  How long that will last is known only to Verizon, and even they may not have decided at this point.  Other carriers may also be doing the same.  They all want to avoid bad publicity that may drive away customers, of course.

At least one early report on 800notes.com, if taken at face value, asserted that a charge of $100.00 was made to a phone bill for calling back for 15 seconds.  Even regular calls to 473 numbers are billed at upwards of $1.80 per minute by most cell phone carriers, even on so-called "unlimited" phone plans, unless you have paid extra for an international dialing plan.  It may be that the scammers get a cut of this money for every international call they receive.

That's why either:
(1) you can't return the phone call, because even though you would otherwise be able to dial it like an ordinary long distance number, you phone company has a restriction on your placing international calls (which these are).  At least some pre-paid cell phone services work this way.  If this case applies to you, consider yourself lucky. Or,
(2) when you call back and get through, the operator of the 473 phone number tries to keep you on hold for as long as possible to run up your phone bill and their profits.

The scammers don't have to be associated with recent security breaches, such as the recent one at Target stores.  (In fact, many of the victims of this scam say that they either don't shop at Target or did not shop there during the period of the known security breach.)  All the scammers have to do is randomly dial a lot of telephone numbers in already-assigned area codes. And they must be dialing a LOT of them based on the complaints logged to 800notes.

It probably doesn't cost them anything to dial you, either, if the called party (you) doesn't pick up the call before they hang up. It only takes a small percentage of angry and/or curious people calling back for them to make a lot of money. They don't even have to pay for real people to operate a call center -- it's all done by machines, outside the reach of US and Canadian law enforcement.

So do yourself a favor and don't call these scammers back.  And you'll also be doing us all a favor, because they wouldn't call anyone at all if there weren't so many people who fell for this scam.

New Year's Eve 6:23 pacific time. Didn't answer,  no message left. I'm w/ AT&T.

rang-  hung up

Rang twice, hung up

missed call