Realtors Targeted In Phone Bill Scheme

A telephone scam by someone at the Idaho Correctional Institution at Orofino continues despite efforts to stop it.

Victims, apparently picked out of the real-estate classifieds in the Lewiston paper, end up with long distance phone bills.Lyndee Lightfoot, office manager at Coldwell Banker/Town&Country Realtors, said someone apparently is using classified ads in the Lewiston Morning Tribune to find victims.

The culprit calls a phone operator, identifies himself with the name of a real estate agent and asks that the call be charged to another agent in the same office. When the operator calls to check, the call may be approved.

“We were alerted to the problem just before Thanksgiving,” said Bob Wayt of Portland, spokesman for GTE Telephone. The company did an investigation and put a block on prison telephones the next day, he said.

He was surprised to learn Tuesday that Realtors still are getting calls.