Date: 16 Aug 92 16:40:07 GMT From: 1012breuckma@vmsf.csd.mu.edu Subject: File 5--Pager Fraud Conviction (Telecom Digest Reprint) Angry Callers Help Convict Man Behind Beeper Scheme From {The Milwaukee Journal} 8/16/92 New York, N.Y. - A Manhattan man has been convicted of leaving messages on thousands of beepers for a telephone number that cost $55 to call. While the defendant, Michael Brown, 23, never made a dime, prosecutors said he stood to make millions before he was caught last year. They said he tried to defraud thousand of potential victims. US Atty. Otto Obermaier said Brown hooked up two computers in his apartment and then attached them to two telephone lines. On one line, the computer placed more than 4,000 calls a day to pagers that people carry with them. A message said that a return call for telephone-based informational services should be made to a special 540 number on Brown's second line tied to the second computer. What the unsuspecting people who returned the calls were not advised is that it would cost them $55 a call, in violation of a New York State Public Service Commission regulation requiring operators of toll numbers to advise incoming callers of the cost so they can hang up before being charged. But Brown devised a scheme in which the computer kept callers on the line for at least 20 seconds, the time required so they could be billed for $55 by the telephone company. In a six-day period in February 1991, the first computer spewed out a total of 26,000 calls. But the fraud did not last long because irate subscribers inundated New York Telephone with complaints of the $55 charge. By the time the company notified federal prosecutors and disconnected Brown's two lines, he had billed a total of $198,000. But prosecutors said that he never collected a dime, and that New York Telephone made no efforts to collect the bills. After his conviction last week, Brown faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 when he is sentenced on Oct. 28. He is free on $30,000 bail. ------------------------------ Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253