AT&T allegedly aids Nigerian scammers, sticks US with $16 million bill

A couple years ago I received a call from an unknown number, which I always pick up—I just can’t resist the mystery. A voice on the line told me this was a telephone service for the hearing-impaired that allows people to type conversations to phone operators who then relay the contents of what they type over the phone. “Are you ready to begin the conversation?” She asked. I told her I was and she told me to go ahead. “Who is this?” I asked. She said flatly, “I ain’t telling, jelly donut, you have to figure that out yourself.”

It was a semi-amusing prank by someone who was actually sitting in the same room as me, typing away at the computer, laughing at my cluelessness.

The service is called IP Relay, and in addition to being used by immature 20-somethings, it’s also used by legitimately hearing-impaired people as well as Nigerian scammers. But mostly by immature 20-somethings and Nigerian scammers, apparently.

According to a new lawsuit against AT&T, the US government alleges that Nigerian scammers, “taking advantage of the anonymity of the service, have used it to defraud U.S. merchants by ordering goods with stolen credit cards or counterfeit checks.” More astoundingly, the lawsuit claims that AT&T knew the scammers were taking advantage of the relay and allowed them to continue, because they get reimbursed by the US government for the pricey calls as a service for the disabled.

From Wall Street Journal:

The lawsuit said the FCC has reimbursed AT&T more than $16 million for the service since December 2009 and estimated that 95% of those payments were for ineligible calls.

The FCC, concerned about abuses of the system, in late 2008 began requiring telecommunications providers to register users of the service and verify the customers’ information. The Justice Department lawsuit alleged AT&T was concerned about losing call volume and implemented procedures that it knew wouldn’t weed out fraudulent users.

If this is true AT&T should actually be guilty of not only defrauding the government out of the $16 million in reimbursement fees, but of actually aiding the Nigerian scammers in defrauding people of their credit card numbers and cash.

This is actually even less ethical than the Australian who got into business with Nigerian scammers and then scammed them. At least she scammed the scammers back. AT&T aided a scam and then stuck the US government with the bill—a double scam!