The Scary New "Delayed Disconnect" Phone Scam

there is a very clever new scam going around that  you definitely need to know about or should i say   it's an old scam that's becoming newly popular  again i've seen it being called the delayed   disconnect scam but basically it takes advantage  of a lesser-known feature in some phone systems   to trick you and the worst part about it is they  can trick you doing this even if you do everything   completely right so it won't even be your fault  so you really need to know about it in order to   defeat it so first here's how the scam goes  and then i'll go over how it actually works   so you get a phone call from someone claiming  to be from your bank they tell you your card   has been compromised your card has been hacked  whatever the usual and they tell you you know what   you need to contact the number on the back your  card which is exactly what you're supposed to do   so then you do that you hang up you call the  number on the back your card correctly by the   way you call the correct number so after dialing  someone picks up and they say hi this is whatever   bank but at this point you have already been  tricked you are still talking to the scammer   wait a minute how did that just happen so here's  how the scam works the first key to understand is   that this is only going to potentially happen on  landlines you see a lot of landline phone systems   do not actually disconnect the call right away  after you hang up the phone depending how the   phone company has your specific system set up  if you as the receiving party hang up the call   however the other caller does not hang up on the  other end then it will stay connected for anywhere   from a couple seconds to several minutes until  the original caller disconnects or that timer is   reached so in the meantime if they didn't hang  up if you pick up the phone again you'll still   be talking to that same person so what the scammer  does is after they hear you hang up they'll start   playing a fake dial tone so then when they hear  you pick up again to call the number on the back   of the card like you're supposed to then they'll  just stop the dial tone and then pretend to pick   up as the bank and obviously what's especially  bad about this is you can do everything right   and still be tricked if you just didn't know  so let me go over a few ways you can easily   defeat the scam and then afterwards we can talk  a little bit more about this so-called feature   and why it exists now the first way to avoid this  scam first of all if you receive the call on your   cell phone then hanging up right away immediately  disconnects the call you don't have to worry about   it if you receive the call on a landline what you  can do is call using a totally different landline   if you happen to have 2 or more likely use a cell  phone to call the number on the back of the card   not the landline you just received the call on  if you don't have a cell phone you only have that   landline and you don't know how long the timer  is for your particular phone company in your area   then you have no choice really but to wait 10  or 15 minutes even to be sure that that call was   disconnected one thing you could do is call your  phone company to ask what this delay disconnect   time is though you might have to go through a few  people before they know what you're talking about   or alternatively you could have a friend call you  i don't know if this has to be done by the friend   having a landline or cell phone but you can have  them call you then you hang up and they stay on   the line and basically time for you how long it  takes until they start to hear a dial tone which   means that that's the amount of time that anyone  is going to have to wait for the disconnect and   then you know also one thing you could do to test  it after not waiting the full amount of time is to   dial a number that you know already like maybe  your friend's phone number and then obviously   if the scammer picks up again or someone picks up  saying hi this is your bank while you just called   your friend's phone number then you know it's  the scammer and then you know that it was a scam   now you might be wondering why does this feature  even exist it sounds like a nightmare in security   well i found a couple reasons the first being the  idea is you could hang up the phone and then pick   it up in another room to continue a conversation  without the other person having to call you again   and this was probably before cordless phones  were a thing another reason that does make   sense actually is so that if there was a weak  connection between the two lines and it was   cutting out it wouldn't hang up every time there  was a weak signal that occurred but still that   would kind of not explain why it would go on for  several minutes maybe like a few seconds tops in   there but there are other big questions like why  does the call remain connected with a delay only   if the receiving party hangs up and why does it  disconnect immediately when the original party   hangs up why not the other way around and why  are there different delayed times so let me get   into explaining all that now it actually took me  quite a bit of digging to find out more details   about this so-called feature or quirk of a  phone system whatever you want to call it   beyond what just some of the basic news articles  were talking about when they were referring to the   scam and all the articles that i was reading about  it referred to this feature as delayed disconnect   but it turns out that that's not actually the  name of this feature one extremely informational   bit of info i found was from a scanned pdf of  this obscure book that i found on google books   and it was called the informatics handbook in one  section it describes the term call clearing which   basically is how the phone system disconnects  the lines depending on conditions it says call   clearing aka clear down or tear down the orderly  disengagement of a call in a switch network later   on here's the key though it says note that three  different control approaches are used in telephone   systems first the calling party clear approach  where the call is only cleared when the calling   A-party puts down the handset then there's the  called party clear approach where the call is   cleared when the B-Party puts down the handset  and third the first party clear where the call   is cleared when either puts the phone down it then  elaborates the A-Party clear approach means that   the receiver can put down the handset and move to  another phone extension without losing the call   however it leaves B-Party vulnerable to having  a phone unable to receive calls if the A-party   does not hang up correctly there are also  implications in hacker scams involving entry   into systems requiring callback procedures so even  in 1996 when this book was written 25 years ago   they already realized that this feature could be  potentially used to scam people so if you have   a landline this is definitely something you want  to know which of the approaches your phone system   from your phone company uses obviously it sounds  like first party clear makes the most sense if   either party hangs up then the phone call should  end even called party clear would be better i mean   if you think about it if you're the person who's  receiving the calls you don't really have control   over who's calling you and how many times they  call you so you should definitely have control   over whether or not you want to end those calls  so then why do phone companies even have this   calling party clear approach well apparently the  logic is that the original caller is the one who's   paying the bill and they're paying for the call so  they should theoretically be able to control when   the call ends but that still seems completely  backwards to me if someone receiving the call   doesn't want to talk then they should be able  to end it and i think most people will probably   agree with me i also did some more digging  and found that the term used for the condition   on the phone system where the called party hangs  up the line remains connected is something named   called subscriber held or CSH and it turns out  this phone system behavior or feature is pretty   ancient i even found it in this document about  phone systems from 1944 so it has been around for   a long time so assuming a landline has calling  party clearing how long is the actual delay and   like i mentioned before that's going to depend  on your phone company and potentially even the   system that your local area phone system uses and  i already talked about the options where you can   call your phone company hope that the person knows  what you're talking about or maybe have a friend   test it with you and time it themselves but again  i'm not 100% sure if this behavior still happens   if the original caller is calling from a cell  phone or if it has to be both people on landline   now i wanted to know what the actual name of this  delay or timer was so that if you called your   phone company you could specifically ask about it  but i couldn't really seem to find any universal   name for it now in the United Kingdom at least i  was able to find a document from the NICC which   talks about UK interoperability standards and they  refer to it as the CSH timeout called subscriber   health we mentioned that before and it actually  does have a specification called timer TO-01   and it looks like the NICC set a possible range  that phone companies could choose for this timer   and it could be anywhere from two seconds to three  minutes and again this is only in the UK in the   united states i've seen cases where it could be  longer so it's not going to apply everywhere also   in this document i found another timer called  TO-03 which is apparently a backup timer in case   the signal for the 01 timer failed to get sent  or something and again everything in here seems   to only apply to the UK so this TO-01 timer might  not be used anywhere else except in the UK however   there was one statement by a Canadian telecom  company called Shaw where in their statement they   referred to it as the call clearing delay time  and this is actually the same term used by British   Telecommunications in their press release when  they reduced that time so it seems like this could   be a pretty good term to use hopefully that now  this scam is getting a lot more press attention   companies will kind of follow suit from the UK  and reduce this greatly if they still have it   implemented there was actually one pretty major  news story done in Canada and the news agency CTV   contacted several different companies in Canada  to ask what their delay time was and they got   some responses so Shaw company did say that they  will shorten the timer to combat the fraud though   they didn't give a specific number two other  companies they contacted Telus and Rogers said   that there is disconnect after 10 seconds and one  company Bell didn't say it all now i was actually   curious what the deal was in the united states so  i tried contacting AT&T and Verizon via support   chat those are two really big companies in the us  and actually got responses so here was my question   it was high i'm trying to find out the call  clearing delay time for landlines meaning how long   a phone call stays connected after the receiving  party hangs up Verizon said thank you for reaching   out to us this varies from call to call actually  many things go into how long a line remains   engaged after the call is completed and terminated  by the handset cellular lines will disconnect and   terminate faster than a traditional copper line  would but generally the line is terminated within   1-2 seconds AT&T's response was this the call will  get disconnected right away after the receiving   party hangs up so assuming the representative  knew exactly what i was talking about   it sounds like these companies use either first  party clearing or a very very short disconnect   time but it maybe would still be worth it to  test out yourself just to be sure in any case   though now that you at least know about this scam  you can be prepared for it if it ever happens to   you so let me know what you guys think down in the  comments if you still have a landline did you know   that this was a thing that could happen with  your phone line also if you enjoyed the video   be sure to give it a thumbs up and also subscribe  because i try to make a couple videos a week so   it should be worth it if you guys want to keep  watching the next video i recommend is where i   was talking about new scams in 2021 so definitely  check that out it should be worth a watch you can   just click on it right there so thanks so much  for watching guys and i'll see in the next video

Channel: ThioJoe

Views: 410,149

Keywords: technology, tech, new scam, phone scam, new phone scam, scams, internet scams, delayed disconnect scam, telephone scam, security

Id: n6sViBC9DGo

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Wed May 19 2021