Is 009 a Scam Call or a Chunghwa Telecom Overdue Notice?

In the afternoon at the studio, I received a survey call from “079580282” asking about Taiwan Broadband cable television. Having just woken up from a nap and feeling a bit dazed, I completed the first phone survey of my life (a moment worth recording).

About an hour later, a call from “00961794051” rang again.

The number starts with 009? That is even more suspicious than a Kaohsiung 07 prefix!

009 is actually Chunghwa Telecom’s dedicated international prefix, used by people in the ROC’s Taiwan-Penghu-Kinmen-Matsu region to make international direct dial (IDD) calls. It can reach numbers in 230 countries, and the call charges are cheaper than using the public international access code 002.

However, some overseas internet servers support caller ID spoofing, allowing users to enter arbitrary digits as their displayed number. So it cannot be ruled out that “00961794051” is also using this kind of fake-number technique.

**

The next day, another number, “00981942648,” called saying the same thing. It seems changing phone numbers is quite easy for fraud rings.

When I picked up, I heard a female computer voice with a somewhat unfamiliar accent—different from the familiar, cruel “the number you dialed is powered off” auntie, or the tragic “the number you dialed is busy” young lady.

The other end opened directly with: “This is Chunghwa Telecom. Your phone bill is overdue and unpaid. Our company has not yet received your payment and will suspend your service immediately.” Then it wanted me to press “9” to be transferred to a customer service representative.

Hey, no—you actually said it yourself in your own voice, without even a computer voice reading out the overdue phone number. How unprofessional.

And frankly, I am the king of overdue and unpaid bills at Chunghwa Telecom! Whether it is a mobile number or fiber broadband, I always wait until the service is cut off before reluctantly paying online. Chunghwa’s overdue-notice system greets me three times a day asking if I have eaten and dressed warmly (proud tsundere stance), and I have never encountered a case where I had to press a button to reach a representative.

So I tapped the speakerphone button, tossed the phone aside to let it talk, and went on with my own business. The other end merely repeated the request to press 9 for a representative, then hung up automatically shortly after.

Still, given my concern as a notorious late-payer (inner voice: you are still afraid, huh), I took a moment to open Chunghwa Telecom’s official “Hami+ Online Payment” site to check whether I had any overdue charges—and there were exactly 0. I also checked my mobile and fiber broadband accounts, and neither had any overdue charges (I even surprised myself at how well-behaved I was this time).

Generally speaking, if it is Chunghwa Telecom’s official customer service line, it will only remind you of overdue charges via computer voice, and it will absolutely never ask you to press any button, because that would completely violate information security control principles.

I did not actually follow the instructions and press 9, so I do not know exactly what would happen. But I can say with certainty that if someone did obediently press it, they would indeed be transferred to a representative—except there is a 99% chance that a fraud ring would be lying in wait on the other end.

The first step in preventing all scams has never changed: “Do not obediently do anything the other party asks of you!”

If I were the one running a scam, the first step I designed would also be to get you to do what I want, and then gradually lead you step by step into the abyss of a trap (a bit like dating, actually).

That said, the reason I did not press 9 was not really out of fear of being scammed by the person on the other end of “00961794051.” After all, if you are foolish enough to work for a fraud ring, could I possibly be more foolish than you?

I was more worried about encountering the legendary other kind of phone fraud: “transferring to an overseas server to extort a large call charge from you.” Whether this technique is real remains unverifiable to this day!

Although it seems technically feasible, whether there is enough excess profit to justify the risk is a question that has lingered in my mind for a long time. Is there anyone working for a fraud ring who could enlighten me?

Further Reading

1. Unknown Calls, One-Ring Hang-Ups, Answer-and-Hang-Up, Scam Calls, Harassing Call Number Blacklist
2. Apple iPhone Blocking Unknown Callers / Blocking Contacts
3. International Access Codes and Country Calling Codes: A Detailed List (Worldwide)