What are Montgomery County Area Codes?
Area codes are the first three digits of local telephone numbers that specify geographical locations known as Numbering Plan Areas (NPAs). They are allocated by the North American Numbering Plan (NANP). Pennsylvania area codes are managed by the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission (PUC). Montgomery County presently has five active area codes which also cover parts of nearby counties in the state.
Area code 215
Created as one of the initial 86 NPAs, area code 215 is the Pennsylvania telephone code in the NANP that originally served southeastern Pennsylvania. It now covers most of the northern and eastern parts of Montgomery County including Plymouth Township, Hatboro, Lansdale, Willow Grove, Horsham, and Pennsburg.
Area code 267
The 267 area code is the NANP overlay code for the 215 numbering plan area. It serves the same communities as area code 215.
Area code 445
Introduced in February 2018, 445 area code is the supplementary overlay code in the NANP for the 215 and 267 numbering plan areas in Montgomery County. It serves the same regions covered by both codes.
Area code 610
Area code 610 was split from area code 215 in January 1994. It is the Pennsylvania telephone code in the NANP for the southern and western portions of Montgomery County. Cities and communities served by this include Norristown, Pottstown, Conshohocken, Sanatoga, Plymouth, Whitemarsh, and Royersford.
Area code 484
Area code 484 is the Pennsylvania overlay code in the NANP that serves the same locations as the 610 numbering plan area.
What are the Best Cell Phone Plans in Montgomery County?
Stellar phone coverage is provided by three of America’s four major carriers in the State of Pennsylvania. Phone service can be unreliable in rural county regions and less densely populated areas. AT&T holds the position for the best network with 95.4% coverage. Verizon’s service follows closely with 93.1% coverage while T - Mobile has a penetration of 92.9%. Sprint offers the least coverage and serves approximately 66% of the county.
Montgomery County has seen a widening gap between cell phone subscriptions and landline users in recent years. Figures from a 2018 CDC survey show that among adult Pennsylvanians,, dedicated cell-phone users surpassed landline-only users by 39.1%. Among minors in the state, sole users of wireless telephony services exceeded landline-only subscribers by 50.2%. These results indicate that residents are dropping their landline phones and increasingly switching to wireless telephony services.
The implementation of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology in the communications system of the Montco government has helped facilitate its adoption among county residents. VoIP uses broadband internet connections to transmit voice and video calls. A 2015 State of the County news report indicates that VoIP technology saved the county an estimated $115,000.
What are Montgomery County Phone Scams?
Phone scams are dishonest schemes con artists use to defraud county residents with the aid of telecommunication services. The Pennsylvania Office of The Attorney General disseminates scam notifications and consumer alerts to protect county residents from the ploys of scammers. Running reverse number lookups on scammers’ phone numbers can identify who they truly are. Locals who suspect they are targets and victims of phone scams can submit online complaints to the Attorney General’s Office or notify the FTC.
The most common phone scams in Montgomery County include:
What are Jury Duty Scams?
Montco Sheriff has alerted residents to scammers pretending to be sheriff’s deputies and other law enforcement officers. They call unwary residents and threaten to arrest them if they fail to pay fines for missing jury duty. Upon compliance, scammers order that Green Dot’s MoneyPak prepaid cards be used to pay for these fines. They sometimes spoof caller IDs to convince their targets that their calls are from the Sheriff’s Office.
County residents are reminded that the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas communicates jury duty obligations via the U.S. mail and never over the phone. Reverse phone lookup free services can help answer the question: “who is this number registered to?” and help verify callers’ claims. Incidents of jury duty scams can be reported to the Sheriff’s Office via email or by calling (610) 278-3331.
What are IRS Scams?
The frequency of these scams spikes during the tax-filing season as scammers try to exploit residents’ expectation of communications from the IRS. They are called by persons posing as IRS or Treasury employees. These con artists convince their marks that they must immediately clear owed taxes using prepaid cards, money orders, and wire transfers. They threaten their victims with immediate arrest, grand jury indictment, deportation, and loss of business or driver’s license if they fail to pay.
The IRS never initiates contact over tax debts by unsolicited phone calls (they contact taxpayers by mail) and they never request that taxpayers use insecure methods to make payments. Taxpayers who believe they may have tax debts should call the IRS directly on (800) 829-1040. Residents affected by this scam can also file complaints online with the FTC or by dialing 1 (888) 382-1222.
What are Tech Support Scams?
These scams usually involve calls from scammers claiming to be computer technicians affiliated with familiar IT companies like Microsoft and Apple. They tell their targets that they have detected viruses or malware on their computers that need immediate fixes. These scammers then ask to be granted remote access to fix their victims’ computers. In other cases, they offer expensive software solutions to repair these fictitious problems. Phone lookup services can help verify these callers’ legitimacy.
Residents are cautioned to be wary of these calls as scammers are only trying to sell useless software solutions or steal financial information to commit identity theft. Scammers may also install malware or spyware which allows them to monitor their victims’ activities and transactions. Residents targeted by this scam are advised to hang up on these scam callers and report to the FTC.
What are Grandkid Scams?
In these types of scams, fraudsters impersonate their targets’ grandkids when they call elderly residents. They tell sob stories of emergencies and make urgent requests for money. These scammers often use information stolen from actual grandkids’ or grandparents’ social media accounts to sound credible. Their goal is to cloud their victims' judgments and to convince them to quickly send money.
Residents are advised to decline all requests to keep calls from loved ones seeking financial help a secret. They should ascertain the veracity of claimed emergencies by contacting close family members. Reverse phone lookups can also shed light on such suspicious calls. Seniors who suspect that scammers may be impersonating their grandkids can report to the Sheriff’s Office or the Pennsylvania OAG.
What are Robocalls and Spam Calls?
Robocalls are programmed phone calls placed by auto dialers to deliver pre-recorded messages. Before their recent abuse by scammers, robocalls served many legitimate informational purposes for organizations engaged in charity drives, political campaigns, and telemarketing. They are favored by scammers because of the anonymity they provide when contacting their potential targets.
Spoofed robocalls increase scammers’ chances of success by tricking their targets into picking incoming calls they believe are from legitimate entities. Residents keen on limiting illegal robocalls can conduct free phone number lookups to determine if inbound calls are robocalls.
Other tips for dealing with robocalls include:
- Get off the phone as soon you realize that a call is a robocall. Staying longer on the line confirms that your number is active and marks you down for more robocalls.
- Request and activate a free call-blocking service from your phone carrier.
- Find and use free phone number lookup services and apps to identify individuals connected to robocalls.
- Join the FTC’s National Do Not Call Registry and Pennsylvania Do Not Call List to stop unwanted telephone solicitations. The Pennsylvania DNC list is overseen by the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General and mandates telemarketers to pay annual subscriptions for quarterly-updated lists.
- Notify the FTC online about the robocall.
How To Spot and Report Montgomery Phone Scams?
Spotting phone scams requires consumer education and vigilance on the part of residents. This is because scammers continuously introduce new tactics to defraud residents and steal their financial information. However, residents can identify scammers and retrieve their information by using phone number lookups to answer questions like “who called me?”
Look for the following red flags when deciding whether an unknown caller is a scam caller:
- Scammers employ threats to gain compliance and force their victims to give up confidential information and money. Common threats include fines, license suspensions or revocations, arrests, imprisonment, and litigation.
- Scammers, unlike legitimate organizations, always insist on specific payment methods that are non-secure and unusual such as gift cards, preloaded debit cards, and bitcoin. Victims are unlikely to recover any money sent through these means.
- Upfront payment requests disguised as taxes or processing fees purportedly for gifts, free products, and winnings are used by fraudsters to extort money from unwary residents.
- Persons calling for sensitive information while claiming to represent legitimate institutions are most probably fraudsters. Authentic organizations never ask for sensitive information on phone calls that their customers did not initiate.
In addition to education and vigilance, services that conduct free phone number lookups by name, phone number, and address are also effective anti-scam tools. The following government institutions actively work to protect residents from the threat of scammers’ activities:
Federal Trade Commission - The FTC keeps American consumers safe from fraudulent and unfair business practices. They also protect residents registered on the National Do Not Call Registry from illegal robocalls. This helps easy detection of future spam calls because scammers, unlike legitimate telemarketers, do not obey the constraints provided by this registry. The FTC informs residents about call-blocking procedures to guard against phone scams. Consumers can submit complaints about robocalls and unfair practices to the FTC online or by calling 1 (888) 382-1222.
Federal Communications Commission - The FCC ombats robocalls and spoofing scams against consumers. Consumers targeted by these scams or robocalls can access information on stopping unwanted robocalls and avoiding phone scams on the FTC’s website. They can also file complaints with the FCC.
Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) - Tasked with maintaining public safety within Montgomery County, the MCSO also routinely provides scam alerts and safety tips to residents. Locals can report scam activities to the MCSO by dialing (610) 278-3368 or contact their municipal police departments.
Through its Bureau of Consumer Protection, the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General - The Attorney’s General Office guards Pennsylvanians against dishonest trade practices. They also implement consumer protection laws and provide regular scam updates to help consumers stay vigilant against scammers’ antics. Individuals who believe they have been scammed can download complaint forms from the Attorney General’s Office or call (800) 441-2555 to complain.