What are Chesapeake City Area Codes?
Area codes are the first set of three digits that begin every North American telephone number. They are also known as Numbering Plan Areas (NPA) which depict the geographical location (state, county, or city) under the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) that calls originate from. According to the North American Numbering Plan (NANP), each region has at least one area code serving it, although in some cases, some regions have multiple overlay codes. Generally, area codes make it possible for subscribers to ascertain the originating locations of the calls, especially when they suspect fraud. Individuals can perform area code lookups using reverse phone number lookup services.
Only one area code serves the entire City of Chesapeake.
Area Code 757
Area code 757 got into service on July 1, 1996, as a split from area code 804. It covers the whole City of Chesapeake. Other cities that area code 757 covers include the Cities of Franklin, Belle Haven, Hampton, Norfolk, Poquoson, Newport News, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Smithfield, Virginia Beach, and Williamsburg. Area code 757 has an overlay area code 948, which serves Southeastern Virginia. The overlay area code was established on February 5, 2020.
What Are the Best Cell Phone Plans in Chesapeake City?
Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint are the three best network service providers in the City of Chesapeake. Of the three, Verizon has the best coverage with 94%, followed by T-Mobile with 90% coverage, and then Sprint with 69% coverage. The network quality may, however, be affected by harsh weather conditions.
According to the 2018 National Center of Health Statistics survey, 49.1% of the Virginia adult population used only wireless telephones, while 4.9% of Virginia adults used only landlines for telephony communications. On the other hand, the telephone status survey shows that 62.3% of minors under age 18 in Virginia used only wireless telephone services, while just 2.3% of the minors used only landlines. From the telephone status survey of both adults and minors, it is evident that wireless telephony services are the more preferred telephony services.
In the City of Chesapeake, VoIP is gradually becoming as popular as PSTN (traditional phone system). VoIP, meaning Voice over Internet Protocol only requires a high-speed internet connection to enable voice and multimedia communications between two or more parties. VoIP is dynamic and is equipped with special features that are essential to businesses and residents. Despite the several special features that VoIP provides, it is very affordable compared to the cost of the traditional phone system. Some sophisticated features VoIP provides include call routing, advanced call management, call analytics, anonymous calling, and call rejection.
What Are Chesapeake City Phone Scams?
As the name implies, phone scams are scams perpetrated over the phone to defraud city residents and deceitfully obtain their personal and financial information. Phone scams in the City of Chesapeake use impersonation as a primary tool to carry out their criminal acts over the phone. These scammers often impersonate government agencies and reputable organizations such as the IRS, police departments, health departments, and financial institutions. Robocalls and Caller ID spoofing make impersonation easy to execute and also reduces the targets’ chances of finding out the actual callers. Robocalls and Caller ID spoofing can be enabled on regular smartphone devices, making it even more accessible to everyone, including phone scammers. Hence, residents must not trust the Caller ID information on calls. Once you have doubts about any call, be sure to run the phone number through a reverse phone lookup. In most cases of spoofing, the phone number look up usually yields no results. If this happens after you receive a call suspected to be from a suspected imposter, report the case immediately.
To help curb the perpetration of phone scams and the abuse of Caller ID spoofing and robocalls, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated measures to educate residents on how to avoid falling victim to illegal Caller ID spoofing and also enable call blocking on their phones.
Prevalent phone scams in the City of Chesapeake:
What are Expert Witness Scams?
Expert witness scams involve residents receiving calls from scammers posing as law enforcement officers. They sometimes introduce themselves as Lieutenant Cole” or “Captain Garrett.” The imposters accuse the recipients of not reporting to the court as “expert witnesses” and add that warrants have been issued for their arrest. They tell the resident to pay a bond over the phone to resolve such warrants and avoid jail. The scammers threaten that failure to do this will lead to a jail term.
The Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office advises that residents do not make any form of payment in response to such calls, as the sheriff’s office will never request payment over the phone, neither offer to “negotiate a payment in place of arrest.” Questions about arrest warrants can be addressed to the Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office at 757-382-6159. Use free reverse phone lookup tools to identify scam callers and block them.
What are Department of Development and Permit Scams?
These scams involve phone scammers impersonating representatives of the Chesapeake City Department of Development and Permits. The scammers request their targets’ remodel permits and personal information. Residents must not yield to such requests, as the Department of Development and Permits never requests residents’ personal information over the phone. The Department may actually call you but even at that, they will only ask you to come to City Hall to verify information relating to your permits. Residents that receive calls like this should hang up immediately and report the calls to the Police Department by calling the non-emergency line 757-382-6161. Residents can also find out who called them by conducting suspicious phone number lookups.
What are IRS Scams?
In IRS scams, con artists posing as IRS officials contact unsuspecting residents and make them believe that they owe back taxes or any other form of debt to the IRS. They demand payment, claiming that refusal to make such payment will lead to immediate arrest, deportation, or revocation of licenses. Such threats are mostly used to make people take unpremeditated decisions. In some cases, the IRS imposters tell their victims to remain on the phone until they make the payments. Typically, the popular payment methods the imposters use are prepaid cards, gift cards, green dot cards, PayPal, iTunes, bitcoins, or wire transfers. Note that IRS scams are prevalent during tax seasons.
If contacted in such a manner, ignore the call and directly contact the IRS to verify the call, even if you owe back taxes. The IRS never calls residents randomly without first prompting them of the call with multiple mails, neither do they threaten residents. Avoid making any payments over the phone no matter how pressured you are. Also, do not give out your personal and financial information, instead, report this to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) online or call 1-800-366-4484 to report. Residents are encouraged to conduct phone number searches using free reverse phone lookup tools to avoid falling victim to such scams.
What are Charity Scams
Here, fraudsters impersonate reputable charity organizations and solicit donations for supposed good causes. However, instead of using the donations for the purpose for which they were gathered, these fraudsters embezzle the funds and cut off contact with the donators. Note that there have been reported cases of fraudsters spoofing the Caller IDs of reputable charity organizations. Hence, residents must not always trust their Caller ID information, instead, they are to use phone look up tools to ascertain the authenticity of such calls. These tools help answer the question, “who is this number registered to?” Be wary of charity scams during or after disastrous events such as earthquakes and pandemics. Make sure to properly verify charity organizations before making donations to them.
What are Robocalls and Spam Calls?
Prerecorded calls sent to several persons using computerized autodialers are known as robocalls. Robocalls are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The FTC mandates that prior consent of the recipients must be obtained before robocalls are sent to them. Therefore calls sent without prior consent are considered illegal and may be classified as spam calls or potential scams. Spam calls are referred to as unsolicited calls that aim to advertise, proselytize, or deliver messages that are not directly relevant to the recipients.
Illegitimate robocalls can be reported to the FTC through the online complaint assistant. However, the FTC authorizes specific robocalls to be placed without prior consent. They include:
- Robocalls strictly for informational purposes
- Robocalls sent on behalf of political parties, legitimate charitable organizations, and legitimate health institutions
- Robocalls for debt collection purposes
In addition, some robocalls contain prompts that redirect recipients to live agents. Be wary of such moves because the aim may be to defraud the recipients, steal their personal and financial information, or advertise nonexistent or fake products or services. These prompts may also direct recipients to press certain numbers to opt-out from receiving future calls, but, the actual intention is to identify active phone numbers and target them with more robocalls.
Follow these steps to combat Illegitimate robocalls and spam calls:
- Terminate the call as soon as you notice that you have answered a robocall. Also do not follow the prompts given during the calls.
- Use the FTC’s online complaint assistant to log a report if you receive such a call or contact 1-888-382-1222 to report over the phone.
- Use reverse phone number lookup tools to identify and block robocalls. Another option is to reach out to your phone network service provider for call blocking options.
- Include all your phone numbers to the National Do Not Call Registry to curb robocalls and other unsolicited calls.
How to Spot and Report Chesapeake City Phone Scams?
To spot phone scams in the City of Chesapeake, residents must be vigilant and stay informed and conscious of phone scammers’ ploys and techniques. Typically, scammers have major techniques they use in carrying out their ploys. They include:
- Calling with copied phone numbers - Truly, this may be quite difficult to detect. However, make sure to conduct phone number searches on reverse phone lookup tools free of charge service to be sure you did not receive a call from a spoofed Caller ID.
- Requesting recipients’ personal details - Ignore such requests and verify the phone number that contacted you through a phone number search. You may also block the phone number, if suspicious.
- Requesting payment for any reason over the phone - Do not yield to such requests. Legitimate entities never request payment over the phone, neither do they request your financial information. Hang up and report to the law enforcement agency closest to you. Note that payment made via prepaid card, wire transfer, gift card, bitcoin, and cash is untraceable and a refund may be impossible.
- Not identifying themselves when they call - Insist that they introduce themselves and if they still refuse, hang up, and perform a suspicious phone number lookup to find out who called.
- Calling with a sense of urgency - End the call immediately as you are likely to make mistakes under pressure. Be informed that no government agency or legitimate organization will call with a sense of urgency no matter the situation.
Chesapeake City residents can report phone scams to these government agencies:
Economic Crime Unit of the Chesapeake Police Department - Can be contacted on phone at 757-382-6251 or by email at CPDCIS@CityofChesapeake.net. You may also use the Citizen's Online Reporting or report in person at:
304 Albemarle Drive,
Chesapeake, VA 23322
Desk Hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Office of the Attorney General of Virginia Consumer Protection Section - Determine where to file your complaint with the Agency Locator. Report by filing the Online Complaint Form. You may also download and complete the complaint form and send a copy to:
Office of the Attorney General of Virginia
Consumer Protection Section
202 North Ninth street
Richmond, Virginia 23219
Fax: 804-225-4378
You may contact the Consumer Protection Hotline at 1-800-552-9963 for more information if calling from Virginia, or (804) 786-2042 if calling from the Richmond region or outside Virginia. The active hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m, Monday to Friday.
Federal Communications Commission - Report a scam by completing the online complaint form.
Federal Trade Commission - Report a scam, using the FTC’s online consumer complaint assistant.