Area Code 809 is assigned to
the following location in: Dominican
Rep.
Enter a Phone Number with Area Code to Begin a
Reverse Number Look
Up
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Area code 809 is an
area code serving the Dominican Republic, with 829
as an overlan.
The area codes 809 and 829 are today the local
telephone area codes solely for the Dominican Republic.
Following Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in
1999, no other countries still pass-through old numbers
from the legacy 809 area code.
When in the Dominican Republic, the full area code +
seven digit phone number must be dialed. When calling
to the Dominican Republic from anywhere in the United
States or Canada dial, 1-809 or 1-829 + seven
digit phone number.
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809
Scam
Some telephone fraud scams once revolved around the
809 area code; it was being used since it has a higher
than normal rate. The victim receives a message on
their answering machine to call a number with an 809
area code. Since there were many new area codes being
introduced in the US, the victim thinks nothing of it
and dials the 809 number. The number dialed is set up
as a premium rate with an exorbitant per-minute charge
such as US$25.00. The victim is then put on hold
indefinitely, and billed for each minute they are on
hold. This is actually perfectly legal, because the
telephone regulations in the Dominican Republic don't
require premium rate numbers to be declared.
With a sometimes inadequate offering of phone
services available in Haiti, some scammers would often
resort to paying a Dominican Republic phone company to
set up phone service on the Haitian side of the border,
under an assumed Dominican Republic area code and
telephone number. Haiti, with its loose regulations on
phone charges, became a prime hotbed for setting up
these scams in the 1980s, which often looked like it
was the Dominican Republic. In order for this to work,
it often required setting up phone service in a Haitian
border town. Since the crime was actually being
committed in Haiti, the Dominican Republic authorities
would be powerless to apprehend the perpetrators
without contacting Haitian authorities.
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The
809 scam spam (email forward)
Around 1996, an email from Scambusters.org appeared,
warning about the 809 and other Caribbean area codes
scams, and this (legitimate) warning began to make the
rounds of forwarded emails. As usual with such
forwards, people have modified it from its original
form to make it appear more urgent. Untruths and
exaggerations in the resulting hoax email warning now
include the following:
- The hoax email warns against ever dialing this
area code, when in truth, most phone numbers in the
809 area code are not scams, and it's perfectly all
right to call someone you know who lives in this
area code. The original recommendation was not to
return calls from people you don't know who claim
that you have won something, or have some trouble
with a credit card that needs to be cleared up
"immediately", or who claim that a family member of
yours has been taken ill, or who offer you a job,
etc.
- The hoax email asks you to forward it to every
friend and family member you know, thus making a
chain letter. Scambusters, the originator of the
warning email, does not ask people to forward their
emails.
- The hoax email warns of outrageous sums that
might be charged, such as US$2,400 per minute, or
sums totalling up to $10,000.00 (the original
warning was for charges that were "reportedly as
high as $25.00" per minute, and included a surmise
that you might be taken for $100.00).
- The hoax email claims that the 809 area code is
new, though it has been in operation for many
years.
- The hoax email places the 809 area code in the
"British Virgin Islands (the Bahamas)" which is an
error copied from the original email.
This text is taken directly from: Answers.com
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