117 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
117 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
Coin Phone Fraud
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From "The Phone Book," by J. Edward Hyde
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Thanks: Damm, BIOC Agent 003
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Hello: Liquid Jesus, Ferret
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A special Hello to: All Potato Militiamen Everywhere
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One of the easiest marks for phone criminals to hit are coin operated
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telephones. Seldom protected, easily accessible, and without alarms to
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prevent illegal access, coin telephones are knocked over with
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unbelievable frequency. There is only one problem encountered in robbing
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coin phones: What do you do with all that change?
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This small problem often enables the police to apprehend coin felons
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quickly. When three men strode into a Denver bank and asked to convert
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change into bills, the teller was not ready for the deluge of coins that
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followed. It took four hours to count the $6,000 in nickles, dimes, and
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quarters, but the men who brought it in didn't collect a single dollar
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bill. The bank, alerted to a recent string of phone robberies, called the
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law and announced that three men were in the bank with an extraordinary
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number of coins. The police arrived before the teller had counted the
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first thousand and took the men into custody.
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Most robberies are not conducted on such a scale, however. Usually, coin
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robberies are petty-cash operations. For the phones most often robbed are
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those in out-of-the-way places, and phones in out-of-the-way places
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seldom draw much buisness. Also, the racket created in a robbery is bound
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to draw attention to the act. Even if the robber is armed with the
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special tools needed (bolt splitters, needle bars, etc.), unnatural
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activity can be noted by passers-by if the phone is in the open, and if
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it's in a booth, the working space is quite small. For these reasons,
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coin robbers generally take the phone with them if at all possible so
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that they can pry into it in relative privacy. Depending on local booth
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construction practices, this can be hazardous:
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One carload of Chicago coin thieves was apprehended as they drove down
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the street dragging a phone booth behind their car.
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In an episode right out of the movie American Graffiti, two would-be
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thieves attached one end of a stout chain to a coin phone and the other
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end to their car. They sped off with the intention of taking the phone
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with them, but they had no idea how well the phone was anchored. Upon
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reaching the end of the chain, the drive shaft of their vehicle parted
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company with the rest of their car. The phone remained firmly in place,
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and the men took the license plates to the car and walked off.
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When determined robbers in New York found the phone bolted to the wall of
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a Laundromat, they decided it would be easier to take out a section of
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the wall than to detach the phone itself.
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In spite of the problems, taking the phone offers a much higher margin of
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success than trying to get the money out of a phone in place. At least in
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Detroit it does. After ecologists cleaned out a municipal pond, they
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found 168 coin phones amid the sodden debris. All of them had been
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rifled.
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Coin phone fraud is another, much easier, way of finding your fortune (or
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winding up in jail) than abusing the little steel box.
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Poor cousins of the toll-fraud machines known as blue and mute boxes are
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the fuzz boxes. These devices duplicate the tones of money dropped down
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the coin chute as heard by the operator or electronic equipment. If the
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device is sophisticated enough, there is virtually no chance of being
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caught unless security personnel physically catch the perpetrator in the
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act. And since no records are kept on individual calls made from coin
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phones, both the caller and the called party are safe.
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At some colleges, airports, and other places where coin phones line the
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walls, phreaks have been known to place their call on one phone and
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deposit the required change in the one adjoining it. The sound of coins
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tinkling down a coin chute is identical on all coin phones in the same
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area, and so the operator or electrical equipment was decieived into
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thinking that the money had been deposited into the phone being used.
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Once the operator allowed the call to go through, the phreak depressed
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the coin return lever on the phone with the money, finished his call, and
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walked away. The only means by which the Company could circumvent such
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activity was to either shorten the receiver cords so that they couldn't
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reach the phones on either side, or to place the phones far enough apart
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so as to make such activity impossible.
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It has become a game of sorts. The company develops a coin phone that
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cannot be "worked," and then the phreaks try to overcome that obstacle.
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The company thought it had a fool-proof instrument in the mercury-drop
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phone.
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A mercury-drop phone works on the same principle as the thermostat. The
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coins trip a lever filled with mercury, and the lever completes the
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connection. The phreaks got around this by using slugs, an old favorite,
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or by physically tilting the phone one way or another. A mercury-drop
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phone installed in one fraternity house was later found by a repairman to
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swing freely in a complete circle. The frats had removed all but one bolt
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located almost exactly at the phone's center of gravity.
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Another, more sinister activity of coin phone devotees does not involve
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the phone itself, but rather the trucks used to haul away the loot.
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Collection trucks are extremely attractive targets. They carry large sums
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of money, are seldom protected, and are almost never defended. In fact,
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the company goes to great legths to impress upon it's collectors the
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folly of defending the truck if a robbery takes place. It is a sensible
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philosophy. Seven out of eight phone collection truck robbers are caught
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within 48 hours because of the aforementioned problem of getting rid of
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all that change. It makes no sense to risk one's life for something the
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company has plenty of and can always get more of. The reason the robbers
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of coin collection trucks are so quickly caught should be obvious. If
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$6,000 dollars worth of nickles, dimes, and quarters is a lot of change,
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then $60,000 worth is ten times as much of a problem. The company is not
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using trucks for collection because it's fashionable. Trucks are the only
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vehicle that can handle the sheer weight of the money, let alone the
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volume.
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Ok, that's the end of that little tidbit. Just as an afterthought, I once
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read that in colder climates, phreaks have been known to seal the coin
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return slot of a pay phone with duct tape, stick a hose against the coin
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slot, and when the phone is full, tape up the coin slot. Overnight, the
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cold temperatures freeze the water, cracking the pay phone open.
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Something tells me that this is a little far fetched, but theoretically,
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if you could provide a watertight seal around all orifices of the phone,
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it would work. If anyone manages this, please, let me know. |