Scam draws new warning from Oklahoma Highway Patrol

By Brian Sargent

Published: September 5, 2008

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is warning state residents not to fall victim to a new telephone scam.

The patrol has received several calls from people who say they've received voice messages stating there has been a serious, sometimes fatal, vehicle accident and their phone number is on a cell phone found in the car, Capt. Chris West said.

The person is instructed to dial a sequence of numbers starting with *72.

According to AT&T, *72 is a custom feature for call forwarding that sends all calls to another phone number, including collect, long distance and other pay-service phone numbers.

Charges are placed on the forwarding customer's account, instead of to the phone from which the call originated.

Call forwarding may be canceled by dialing 73#.

Call forwarding is a subscription-only service.

Those who haven't requested the service don't have the ability to forward calls.

West said the scam has been reported in other states and anyone who gets such a call should report it to local law enforcement.