CELLPHONE HORRORS

BE WARNED!
Somebody could be walking around with a cellphone that is on your name without your knowledge. The cellphone could either be stolen or could have been obtained through some kind of fraudulent means. That’s the verdict of top-ranking police officers and inside sources at the Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (TSTT). To make matters worse, the people using the cellphone on your name could be high-ranking criminals including murderers, kidnappers and fraudsters, or on the less worrisome side, pranksters who have nothing better to do than call the police to make crank calls. There are several cases in point perhaps too much to mention, but one that stands out is the one where a cellphone was recently found in a prison cell.

That phone, number 779-4413 was traced to a woman from the St Barb’s area.  But further investigations by this newspaper revealed that the woman who lives at that address carries a different name, close to the one who is said to be the owner of the cellphone. That woman has already denied any knowledge of the cellphone and the Mobile Department of the Telecommuni-cations Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) has launched an internal investigation to determine how this could have happened.  Another situation developed on Friday when a man called the Emergency-999 Command Centre, saying that there were two separate shootings in Laventille and Aranguez. The caller who identified himself as “Ricky” stated that a man had been shot four times at Jonathan Avenue, Laventille.  That call came in at 10.12 am Friday and less than two minutes after, he called again saying that two men were “shooting up each other” in Aranguez. Police and members of the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF) were despatched to the shooting scenes but there were no victims to be found. 

Upset police officers also said they encountered many problems to locate Jonathan Avenue, which turned out to be a fictitious address.
Realising that the calls were bogus, the number from which the prank calls came, was later identified as 766-4117, which rang out of service when Sunday Newsday called it. However, senior police officers said although a number is out of service it can still make calls to emergency numbers.
The cellphone number was later traced to a young woman from Lodge Alley Trace, Claxton Bay. When Sunday Newsday interviewed the woman on Friday she was in total shock to learn that the number was still in her name.  Not wanting to be identified, the woman confirmed that she once used the number. However, she explained that she went into TSTT’s Chaguanas branch on September 16 and the number was changed to another prepaid number at 11.36 am on that day.

The Claxton Bay woman said she sold the phone last Saturday, and that the initial number was changed on the buyer’s request because the buyer did not want any of her friends to be calling him on the old number. TSTT’s Mobile Manager, Michael Barrow supports this view, saying that when a number is changed, the old one immediately goes into a recycle bin and stays in quarantine for a minimum of six months, after which it could be used again. “This is consistent with the advisory we have sent out,” Barrow explained yesterday.  The TSTT manager said he could not say how the phone could still be in the woman’s name and said that he would have to check with the engineers to determine what could have happened. “It is information that needs to be investigated and that is what we are doing,” Barrow ended.  Senior police officers, meanwhile, told Sunday Newsday there appears to be some kind of racket going on, but were uncertain who was behind it and what the benefits are.