Monday, January 12, 2009

Numbers to ignore: 506 or 062 Costa Rican robocalls

This company, representing themselves as "CardMember Services", but really in San José or Heredia in Costa Rica, calls with a robocall opening and a request to press 1 or 2. Pressing 2, as their prompt suggests to remove the called number, does not work; we keep getting calls on all our numbers.

Sometimes, caller ID drops the first digit of international calls, so you get "062" (not a valid country code at present).

The call is blandly phrased, purportedly about "our credit card balance" so someone unaware might think it was legitimate, but they fish for credit card information in order to switch us to another company.

Pressing 1 goes to an agent who always insists, in violation of the law, we need to re-register yearly. Asking that agent to put us on their Do Not Call list results in a hangup.

On the last call, I was told their offices are in Spokane WA. Unfortunately, the state-owned Grupo ICE or Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad and its subsidiary RACSA own all telephone switches, so trying to peel information away from a Banana Republic ministry is less than fruitful.

(data from Vonage call log)
Jan 12, 2009 at 01:09 PM using 506 2 209 9729
Dec 12, 2008 at 02:05 PM using 506 2 205 8435
Nov 06, 2008 at 12:05 PM using 506 2 234 659
Sep 08, 2008 at 05:15 PM using 506 2 272 4154
Jul 23, 2008 at 06:29 PM using 506 2 200 9870

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