The Cell Phone Provider Discount Scam
- Juanita Headley
- Nov 20
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
By Juanita Headley Esq.
November 2025 - England
Although Thanksgiving is a US holiday, Black Friday sales are drawing consumers into pre-Christmas shopping. At the same time, online and retail shops, aren’t the only ones cashing in, as the scammers are hidden in plain sight with fake adverts, counterfeit goods, and spoof websites.
A common saying that, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” seems to be falling on deaf ears, because of the vast number of victims falling for the trap of get rich quick schemes, involving Bitcoin, the lottery and investments.
These people aren’t typically poor, uneducated, or vulnerable, often, their biggest shortcoming is that they are trusting, have discretionary income, or simply have the means to borrow large sums of money from friends and family without being questioned.
The thing about scams, is that although it often involves a vast global criminal network, what is commonly unknown is that the individuals doing the scams, are often victims themselves imprisoned inside scam compounds in Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
Once such compound, KK Park is in Myanmar on the Thai-Myanmar border. Whilst overseas in July for the Asia Region Anti-Trafficking (ARAT) Conference, I travelled 7 hours by bus from Bangkok to Mae Sot where I saw KK Park with my very own eyes.
Scam Compound KK Park - a photo taken by Juanita Headley Esq from Mae Sot in July 2025.
It was a very emotional experience, being stood in the pouring rain, looking at monstrous buildings spanning over 7 km in length, knowing that behind the barbed wire and high brick walls were thousands of victims of deception, kidnapping, human trafficking and exploitation “working” 16 – 20 hours a day, scamming people all around the world.
A little less than 3 months later, I received a phone call from a woman with a distinct South Asian accent telling me that I had a discount on my last 3 phone bill. Since I have only a pre-paid Sim card which is not with 3, I told her,
“I don’t have a contract. Are you in a scam compound in India?”
When she replied,
“Why would you ask that?” I said, “Are you a victim of human trafficking and been scammed into a compound?”
Her response was to disconnect the call.
Now from my experience as both a consumer and a customer representative, a warning is always given before the call is disconnected, whether that’s because I can’t be heard on the phone, or a customer is being abusive. Even in my work as a listening volunteer for the Samaritans, when it turned out that the person was using our services for a faux sex call, we would politely tell them that we were going to hang up before disconnecting.
Therefore, this reaction was a huge red flag. Now, did I think they were going to confess to being a victim of human trafficking? Of course not, however, from all the research I’ve undertaken, realistically speaking, the last thing a scammer would do, when they have a quota to meet is to hang up on me. Instead, they would reassure me that they are not a victim of human trafficking, and try and keep me on the phone long enough to scam me out of all my money, thus fulfilling their “work duties.”
So, the question is how do you respond to scam calls and protect yourself from scams?
If you receive a call from your cellphone provider, bank, utility company, the police etc. ask for the person’s name and/or a reference number, end the call, and then locate the number from a legitimate source such as your bank statement, bill, or an official website and call them back;
Always call your bank on the number on the back of your card;
Don’t save banking passwords on your phone or laptop, use different pin numbers for each account and never share this information with anyone;
Always go to the official government website when paying for visas, arrival cards etc.;
Type www. at the beginning of every website that you use;
Block and report spam messages received via text, whatsapp, email or social media channel, if you respond, they will know your account is active and you’ll receive more scam messages;
Never share your OTP number with anyone;
Never ever give your money to an online “friend” whether or not the relationship is platonic or romantic;
Don’t invest in Bitcoin, (unless you can verify it is a legitimate website), receiving initial payouts isn’t proof of legitimacy, in fact; this is also part of the scam. Once you invest larger sums of money and later try to make a withdrawal, that’s when the website suddenly disappears, and your money is gone;
Don’t click links that you receive from someone you have never met before and do not know personally.
