But for the past few years the Internet has been making the process cheaper, faster and easier. Using a system known as IP Relay, which is offered by ATT, MCI, Sprint and others, deaf people--and people with speech impediments--can connect via any web-ready computer, PDA or phone. A trained operator is still required, but it's a huge improvement to be able to call from just about anywhere, as opposed to those few places where a TTY terminal might be found.

There's just one problem: The system is under attack by scammers and pranksters, causing trouble for the people it's designed to help, and costing American businesses and phone customers millions of dollars. It turns out that IP Relay provides a convenient way for its abusers to hide their identities, and it lets them make free long distance calls to boot. (See "How An IP Relay Call Works", below.)

The Scams
Some IP Relay operators say they now spend much or most of their day unwillingly facilitating scam and prank calls coming in over the net. The scams usually involve purchases with fake or stolen credit cards or checks, and seem mostly to originate in Nigeria or other West African countries. They're easy to spot because of non-idiomatic use of English and sloppy use of common relay abbreviations. One frustrated operator has taken to using an excerpt from one of these calls as a sig:

NEED SHIP TO MOTHER LESS HOME CAN GIVE ADDRESS GAGA

That's from a call purportedly from an orphanage, or "mother less home". The repeated "GA" is the abbreviation for "Go Ahead", as in "It's your turn to speak."

An operator who goes by the alias "Clear-Conscience" told me about some of the scam purchase attempts to which he's been a reluctant party:

"Pharmaceuticals, especially Centrum Silver... a lot of copies of My Life by Bill Clinton for some reason... guns, guitars, sex toys.... [and] lately one of the more disturbing trends is they're ordering puppies, in bulk."

Scammers hope to make money by reselling the merchandise. In some cases they offer "payment" for more than the asking price, with a request for the mark to send them the balance as a refund (an example of the 419 fraud, which is commonly committed via email and is named after the section of the Nigerian legal code that outlaws it).

When these frauds succeed, there are multiple victims. The vendor, of course, is out the value of the merchandise. A bank may be on the hook for a bad check it cleared. The operator has to live with knowing he or she assisted a crime, however unwillingly (and with little choice, as we'll see). Legitimate relay callers may find that the system is busy because of all the bogus traffic, or they may get hung up on by businesses that have been burned before (although it's illegal for a business to refuse to serve a deaf caller). And ultimately all Americans phone customers pay. That's because IP Relay service is paid for by the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Fund, which is supplied by a levy on phone bills.

Abuse of IP Relay has probably cost Americans many millions of dollars so far. There has been a surge in billed relay minutes since 2003, such that the TRS Fund's administrator, the National Exchange Carrier Association (NECA), recommended a 43% funding increase to $413.3 million for the current fiscal year. That sum is used to cover other kinds of relay calls as well, such as Video Relay for users of sign language, but it appears likely that much of the extra traffic is illegitimate. According to Lisa Markkula, the founder of a site called StopRelayAbuse.com and herself a former relay operator, some operators estimate that between 25 and 80 per cent of the calls they handle on a given day are scams or pranks.

How An IP Relay Call Works
First, a caller browses to the web site of one of the companies offering the service, such as AT&T, Hamilton Telecommunications, MCI, Nordia-i711, Sorenson Media or Sprint. Let's say you were to go to MCI's site at ip-relay.com. If you clicked the link to make a call, you would see a prompt like this:

Pls enter any special instructions then the nbr to dial and hold for opr GA

After connecting you, the operator would say to the other party whatever you typed, and type for you whatever they said, using abbreviations such as GA (Go Ahead), QQ (Question mark), RO (Relay Operator), and SK (Stop Keying, i.e. "Hang up"). The call would be free for you, since it is paid for out of the Telecommunications Relay Service (TRS) Fund, which is supplied from levies on phone bills.

Since IP Relay is intended to be used only by deaf, hard of hearing or speech-impaired residents of the US, if you don't fit that description you're not allowed to use the system. But because of the very features that make IP Relay so useful for legitimate users, it would be hard to stop you.

By Spencer Critchley