Video: Listen to Recording of IP Relay Scam — Hundreds Charged to Credit Card

About a year ago I started to receive IP Relay calls at my place of work. These calls are paid for by you and me with fees on our phone bills.  The program's purpose is for deaf persons to used the service via computer and an operator relays the typed word to a business or friend. Which is a great thing!

The problem is that this service has been hijacked by foreign scam artists. Apparently, they call businesses in America and attempt to place a weird order and have it shipped to some far-off place. Or in my case, every caller has attempted to order a ridiculous number of pizzas or fried chickens. 

Then they tell you they have their own private carrier to come and pick up the food. But (strange as it may be), their carrier doesn't accept credit cards and they ask you to add the additional charge of hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the order. Then they ask you to Western Union that extra charge to them so they can pay their carrier. 

That's how they get paid. Apparently they are able to acquire lists of active credit cards ... but have no use for them in their own country.

Another part of this problem is the IP Relay companies. The government pays these relay companies a minimum of $1.30 a minute for each relay call, no matter the content, so it's very profitable for the companies to keep the scam calls coming in! Why block something thats making you money?!? Profits erode morals.