Sharon task force issues phone scam warning

SHARON — Responding swiftly to reports of scam phone calls received throughout area towns, the Sharon Connect Task Force (SCTF) has issued a warning to beware of such calls, as well as advice on how to deal with them.

The message starts with: “Hi, there. This call is to remind you that 50% discount offer under Comcast Xfinity account expires today.”

The message urges people to call a number to get the phony discount.

“The scammers are up and running,” warned SCTF co-chairman Meghan Flanagan. The bogus calls coincid with the start of Comcast’s installation work to provide high-speed internet service throughout the town. The message transcribed above was recorded by Flanagan’s answering machine. It is a sample of such calls that will either be identical or similar in theme.

Fans of proper English will detect errors within the message that in this case was an energetically cheerful female voice. Research into the phone number indicates that the area code is free to callers in multiple countries who want to appeal to a broad swath of North America.

“I believe this is not so much a reaction to the work we did to bring the internet to Sharon, but rather from two things going on,” Flanagan explained. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is offered through the offices of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) and it can provide for a $30 monthly credit, but the application needs to be done directly through the internet service provider (ISP). In Sharon and some area towns, ISPs are Comcast and Frontier.

Once the valid ACP application is approved by the customer’s ISP (Comcast or Frontier in Sharon), the customer’s account may be automatically credited at the rate of $30 monthly, Flanagan said. Some of the scam calls offer a credit of $40, available to seniors, making this a targeted attack on the area’s older residents.

Flanagan doubts that these calls are limited to area towns but sees a possibility that news coverage of the build-out of coverage by ISPs may have attracted the scam.

Offering advice on how to recognize a scam call and what to do about it, Flanagan said, “It could be tricky.”

At some point in the future, Comcast might potentially be calling residents to arrange for home to pole connection and activation, but Flanagan feels that the SCTF task force will be assisting with arranging for those connections. She does not expect that Comcast will be calling directly without advance notice provided by the SCTF.

Large ISPs like Comcast or Frontier do not do cold calling to potential customers, Flanagan observed.

The same advice about what to do applies to all sales calls, Flanagan said. Do not provide any personal information (email, address, credit card, Social Security) to the caller. If a call comes in offering a discount or great deal, tell them that you will call their main customer service line. If they insist that you need to take immediate action or they want to call you back, it is clearly a scam, she said, adding that she expects similar scam calls within the area purporting to come from Frontier or Altice/Optimum.

If a call is received claiming to be from any ISP, the best thing to do is to call the company’s customer service number to verify. Flanagan provided the local ISP numbers:

Comcast: 855-870-1311

Frontier: 888-709-4872 (this is a direct ACP line for Frontier)

Optimum: 203-870-2528