Fraud Alert

from the San Francisco Chronicle

If you're thinking about ordering a pizza for dinner tonight, you'll definitely want to think twice if the pizza place insists that you pay by credit card. That's because an AT&T official fired off an internal memo the other day warning of a scam being perpetrated on California consumers, pizza restaurants and the telecom giant itself.

Here's how the scam works:

A fraudster contacts an AT&T service rep and says he works at a pizza parlor and that the phone is having trouble. Until things get fixed, he requests that all incoming calls be forwarded to another number, which he provides. Pizza orders are thus routed by AT&T to the fraudster's line. When a call comes in, the fraudster pretends to take the customer's order but says payment must be made in advance by credit card. The unsuspecting customer gives his or her card number and expiration date, and before you can say "extra cheese," the fraudster is ready to go on an Internet shopping spree using someone else's money.

AT&T said it's possible there have been other instances elsewhere in California and perhaps other states as well. AT&T has no way of knowing until an individual pizza parlor calls in to ask why its phone has stopped ringing. AT&T has alerted other phone companies about the bogus call-forwarding requests.