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TSSA members and other self-storage
operators throughout the country have been reporting scams
involving the Deaf Relay telephone service, or what many
of us have heard referred to as TDD, Telecommunications
Device for the Deaf.
What is Relay?
Relay is what deaf, hard of hearing and speech-disabled
individuals use to speak to the hearing community. A person with a
text telephone or more recently, an Internet connection,
can use a relay service where the operator dials the
receiving phone number and relays the text conversation
to the hearing person, and then types back to the deaf
person what the hearing person says.
The Scam
TSSA members affected by this scam have
reported receiving a call, ostensibly from a deaf
individual, through a TDD operator or relay service.
The operator tells the storage manager that the caller
wants to rent a storage unit, but because of his
disability he wants to take care of the transaction in
advance by paying with a credit card. All seems to
proceed fine as information for a lease is gathered by
phone, though there may be a few things that seem odd,
such as the operator reading language that seems
slightly stilted, perhaps indicating that the caller is
not a native English speaker.
In one scam, after renting
the unit, the "deaf" tenant asked the storage operator
to receive packages on behalf of the tenant's business,
to be relabeled and reshipped to another location. Though this
may sound suspicious as you read about it now, keep in
mind that these scam operators are quite skilled at
creating plausible stories, and with payment in advance,
the request seemed reasonable to the member. The
sympathy evoked by the caller's disability may also work
in the scammer's favor as self-storage operators try to
be accommodating.
Another TSSA member
reported that the "deaf" prospective tenant reported she
was moving to the area after treatment for cancer, and
offered to pay all charges in advance by credit card,
including fees for a moving service. She asked the
storage manager to send the moving company payment via
Western Union, but only after she paid all charges in
advance by credit card. The manager became
suspicious enough to get an authorization on the credit
card provided in advance, at which time it was declined
and later identified as stolen.
Stolen Credit Cards the
Common Denominator
In each of the scams, the
common denominator is that the caller was renting a
space using a stolen credit card number.
Unfortunately, it can take from 30 to 60 days to learn
that a credit card number has been stolen, at which time
charges are typically disputed and reversed. By
then, the "deaf" tenant is long gone, having never
actually occupied the space.
Tips for Avoiding a
Scam
-
Always do a credit card
authorization on charges for units rented over the
phone or by TDD; though not a guarantee, the stolen
card number may be flagged.
-
Ask for the security
number on the back or front of the credit card;
typically a scammer won't have this information.
-
Scammers will usually
provide an e-mail address for future correspondence;
don't be fooled, e-mail addresses are easy to abandon
and difficult to track.
-
Ask the caller using TDD
or relay where they are calling from, and be alert to
the use of substandard English in what the operator
reads to you.
-
Ask the TDD or relay
operator to ask the prospective tenant what type of
sign language he or she uses. (American Sign Language
is most common in the United States.) If he or she
cannot answer that question, or answers it with
something other than ASL, that should be a big red
flag.
-
Ask for a call-back
phone number so that you can verify that the caller
possesses a TTY (text telephone). You would hear
a couple of short chirps similar to a dial-up Internet
connection if the number is for a TTY device.
-
With the Internet, it is
fairly easy to go online and verify identity using the
name/address given to you by the caller using
WhitePages.com or PublicData.com; if things don't
jibe, there is probably a reason!
-
In short; proceed with
caution, and take whatever actions you can to verify
that the caller is actually a legitimate user of TDD
or relay. Just don't expect the operator to give
you information, as they are bound by confidentiality
agreements that prohibit sharing of information.
-
If you are ever
suspicious, you can just hang up; the worst thing that
can happen is that the caller will contact you again
using a service, buying you a little time to think
things through, and discouraging potential scammers.
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