> I answer the phones at my work (it's a small office) and several times now I have received some weird calls. The deal is usually the same, somebody calls up and says "I'm calling about the copier in the front office. I need the model number." I've had people also call up and say they were with "facilities" or "the central office" or something, obviously trying to trick me into thinking they're with the corporation (of course this doesn't work with me since the corporation consists of roughly 15 people).
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> Anytime I press for more info, they immediately hang up (which is why I know they're not solicitors). What gives? I figure it's obviously some kind of scam, but I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. The calls are infrequent, and I never have the presence of mind to give them a fake model number to see where it goes. Anyone know what's up?
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> Ste "Most perplexed" phen

The phoney bill scam has been around for a long time. In the early 1970's, I took over the job of principal at a small elementary school. The name of the school had been changed two years before, therefore it was a new school name and a new principal name. I got bills for books, cleaning supplies, science supplies, repair work, classroom materials, and just about anything else that you could think of. Many bills came to me with the old school name and then again with the new school name. I also got a few with my name and then again with the former principal's name. I never paid anything until I checked to see that the school actually owed the bill. Roughly half of these bills were for other schools in the area or other schools with similar names, anywhere. I talked to the principal of a school in the next county about this. His school's name was within one letter of being the same as mine. His last name was the same as my first name. We determined that many companies routinely sent duplicate bills to both schools. We found evidence that many of these bills had been paid by both schools under earlier administrators. He also got bills that were intended for schools hundreds of miles away.
I think some of this could be poor bookkeeping, or maybe just an attitude of "I'm gonna get paid, and if I get paid twice, it's gravy." It could have started with a few bills sent and paid in error, thus planting the seed of a scam.
Howard