Dave,

Here's a link to a post from someone who had a similar problem, but it involved the hacking of a cell phone.  See the post by jemnay on January 6, 2014:

http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-767-275-9172/2

Thank you Anon!

On the right side of the home page of 800notes.com, you will find a "Site Menu."  Click on the "Forum" link.  Then, click "New Topic."

Anon- Thanks for the advice.  I googled the number in question and this forum popped up... How would I go about starting a new thread?

Dave,

I wonder if you started a thread in the Forum about this problem of being charged for outgoing calls, if someone would be able to help you.

Marilyn, have you gotten anywhere with Verizon?  Same thing happen to me.  They are charging me for a 30 min call I never made.

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

An older report from WCAX-TV in Burlington, VT describes the scam:
http://www.wcax.com/story/15581487/check-your ... area-code-scams

The biggest news organization to date that I have seen recently running a story on this scam is KSL-TV, Salt Lake City, Utah:
http://www.ksl.com/?sid=28211799&nid=148&titl ... _cid=featured-3

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.

Were you billed just for *answering* the phone from this scammer?

How can this happen?  I thought one could only be billed for outgoing calls!

Have had a lot of calls from 473.   Answered and got billed 40.00 from Verizon.

Just got a call from +47 35 20 97 51 rang one time then hung up. I called back because I was curious and the number was busy. Odd

+74 35 20 97 51 called me 10:30 PM 12-31-13 I did not answer.

2:16 am nobody on line

It happened two nights in a role to me at 1:00 am.2 am and 3:00 am

I am getting calls from this same area code on at least a dozen different numbers now and a new one with too many numbers  37259188978.   Getting tire of this garbage, must be something we cando

I have been receiving calls from +47 35 20 97 with the final two digits being 08, 12, 58, and 90 over the last two days. Interesting to see that they are originating in Grenada for some of you since my phone says it is from Norway and if you reverse phone number look up it is from Telemark, Norway. All have been one ring hang ups from all times of the day and night. Check out snopes from years ago when this was coming out of Afghanastan, et al.

Same as many others . 1 ring , no message . So I googled it and ended up here , good thing too .

received a missed call from this number as well today at 11:51 am. I will NOT be calling it back thanks for info.

Called at 4am on the dot. Did not answer. Whoever calls at this hour is just rude.

received at 4am. didn't hear it but saw it came from Grenada.

I received a call from this number at 3:38 a.m., no message nothing.   I was sleeping, I did not pick up.  

Call came in at 230am. Luckily I was sleeping. So I didn't answer...looks like that was a good thing, thanks

Had a missed call at 12:44 a.m. from this number.  Glad I had mine on silent and thankful I didn't call it back either (usually don't if they don't leave a message anyway!)

I got a call from this number last night at 4:23am. I didn't pick up and it hung up after 2 or 3 rings.  Thanks to you all, I know not to call back!

I GOT A CALL FROM THIS NUMBER... DON'T WANT IT CALLING ME AGAIN

Unknown

I also received a call at 2:30 in the morning. Thanks all for the info!

Can you ask the peole you know in Grenada to call the police on these people and show them This site?

Call is from the country of Grenada. Do NOT CALL BACK!!!

Got a call, missed it, called back n it says its busy...

Received 2 calls on different days from the same number? Rang once and hung up.