Phone Hackers Rack Up $27,000 Bill For Hinsdale Church
HINSDALE, Ill. (CBS) -- A Hinsdale church is on the hook for a $27,000 phone bill for calls made while the church was closed.
As WBBM Newsradio's Brandis Friedman reports, Hinsdale police say over the course of one weekend in November, hundreds of calls were made using the phone line at the Unitarian Church of Hinsdale, at 17 W. Maple St. in the southwest subrurb.
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"Considering the high number of calls, it would be difficult for one person or persons to actually make these calls," said Hinsdale Deputy police Chief Mark Wodka.
But Wodka says the calls likely were not made from the church.
"These phone calls, or series of phone calls, could have been placed anywhere in the world," Wodka said.
A Chicago Tribune report says the calls were made to Libya, but Wodka will only confirm that the international calls were made to a region expensive enough to rack up $27,000 in costs with the phone company, AT&T.
Wodka says police are investigating the calls as fraud, but once they determine from where the calls originated, or where the church's phone system is compromised, jurisdiction in the case may change.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
