New Law Targets Jail Phone Scams

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a new law into effect which makes it a felony to commit a phone scam from jail or use other forms of electronic communication to commit fraud, theft or identity theft while incarcerated. The new law is in response to a case involving 20 inmates at the Cook County jail caught placing more than $50,000 in illegal collect calls to random phone numbers throughout the United States and Canada. The inmates would identify themselves as police officers and would inform the people answering the calls that a loved one was involved in a car accident and that they need to call a supervisor and gave them a phone number beginning with *72 or 1172. Once the victims called the numbers their phone numbers would be hijacked and inmates would be able to use the phone numbers to make collect calls from jail without paying for them. This new law was enacted to specifically target these types of crimes.

This new law goes into effect on January 1, 2010.

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