My mother called back this # and was charged $8.45 on Dec 30 2013. Who can this scammer be reported to?

Recieved a call from 473-520-9764 coming up as Grenada on 12/29/13 2:17pm

missed call on cell 4;30 this morning

Called at 12:09 am.

I got a call this morning from this number 1:00 am. Makes me mad that they are calling. Can I have the number blocked from my iPhone?

On 12/31/13 at 11:07 a call from this number 473-520-9764

My wife and I recieved a call from this number on both our cell phones at 3 am!  Of course no message.  Scammers!!!

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.

Same thing. Got a call from this number at 6:43. Glad I googled it! Will be blocking it. Thanks for the posts!

Just received a call from 473-520-9764 at 2:42 am ... No message left.

Received a call at 4am on new years eve!

Just got a missed call from this number at 6:59am today.   No message.   Since this is my business line, tried to call back but luckily got all circuits are busy, then checked this forum, thanks!

Recieved a call from this number yesterday at 2:42am.   Tried calling it back... THANKFULLY my cell phone does not allow me to call long distance.  Should have Google it first.  Thanks for the info.

I just received a call glad I never return call from numbers i don't know

Got cal Sunday pm did not answer how do I block

got the 473 numer caller-scammer.  how to stop it?

Dec. 29, 6:30 am. Called to see who it was... message: Wait for the operator.

Glad I saw this sight.  Missed call last night and no message.

Yes! annoyed..

My phone didn't even ring! Just came in as a missed call from that number. Hang em high!!!

Stop this People from calling at inapropiated time please

UNKNOW CALLER at 4:30AM???

UNKNOWN CALLER AT 5:30AM! NO MESSAGE

Called at 7am. Googled and blocked this number. Thanks for the info!

Nonsense,  caller called at 4:30 am.  Dropped call.

Same number. 730 am

Thanks everyone. Received call at 4:32 a.m. Ridiculous!

My husband and I both just received calls on our cells from this number. Our phone numbers are only different by the last digit, so it must be scrolling through numerically.  It didn't even ring a full ring before disconnecting. Wish we knew where to report this sort of crap.

I received a call from this number at 12:18am eastern time. Didn't respond, googled and found this message board. As others stated, don't pick up an international phone number if not known. Happy Holidays!

Received call from this # around 3:20pm one ring, didn't answer, didn't leave message. Found my way here after the call.