What are Douglas County Area Codes?
In Douglas County, Colorado, there are 2 area codes serving the cities and communities within the county’s geographical borders. They include area code 303 and area code 720. These area codes are Colorado area codes in the North American Numbering Plan covering the north-central parts of Colorado. Cities in Douglas county covered by this area code include Aurora, Castle Pines, Littleton, Lone Tree, Castle Rock, Parker.
Area code 303 is the original area code of these cities, while area code 720 is an overlay to prevent using up all possible telephone numbers and central office codes in high growth areas.
What are the Best Cell Phone Plans in Douglas County?
In Douglas County, there are four major phone providers. Verizon has the best coverage with about 81.71% reach, followed by AT&T at 79.66%. T-mobile has an average coverage of 63.38% and Sprint lags behind with a coverage of about 39.57%.
CenturyLink and Spectrum operate as the biggest landline providers in Douglas county.
According to the National center for health statistics in 2019, 61.4% of the households in Colorado use only cell phones, compared to the 3.0% that use only landlines.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), is also known as IP telephony. It is a method of delivering voice communications and multimedia sessions over internet networks.
The five major voice-over-internet protocol service (VOIP) providers in Douglas County, Colorado, are Cisco, RingCentral, GoToConnect, Onsip, and Ooma.
VOIP services are available to any individual or businesses that require phone numbers with Douglas county area codes.
What are Douglas County Phone Scams?
Douglas county phone scams are deceptive plans targeting phone users in Douglas county usually to steal their money or identities.
To make these phone scams realistic they are sometimes executed with phone numbers containing the area codes of Douglas county. According to the federal trade commission, there were a total of 897 scams reported per 100,000 citizens resident in the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, metropolitan statistical area
Popular scams that occur in Douglas county include:
- Imposter scams
- Grant fraud and lottery scams
- Online Auction/Sale Scams
- Romance Scams
A robocall is an automated call that dials numbers and delivers pre-recorded messages to multiple phone users at once.
Robocalls are often used in telemarketing and political campaigns. However, robocalls can also be used in phone scams by calling a number and attaching a caller ID that makes the call look like a number in the Douglas county area code.
You can take action against robocalls by:
- Hanging up the calls if you notice it is a pre-recorded message.
- You can also register your number in the national do not call registry.
- You can block numbers that have suspicious caller IDs.
- Use call-blocking apps recommended by the U.S. wireless communications industry.
How Can You Spot and Report Douglas Phone Scams?
Scammers often use a variety of tactics to deceive their targets into sending money or revealing important and sensitive identities. Some common types of scams in Douglas County are:
- Impersonator Scams - the scammers pretend to be who they are not, the scammers would usually impersonate an identity that would be easy for you to trust e.g a government organization, your family, or your friends.
- Scams involving debt and credit waivers - scammers can offer to issue debt relief for you if fees are paid to their organization. Some scammers may also offer you loan facilities after you have paid a fee to their company.
- Investment Scams - This often involves scammers promising large returns of investment.
- Philanthropic Scams - This is carried out by scammers who disguise as philanthropic organizations soliciting funds to carry out noble causes.
- Fake free trial scams - scammers often advertise products and overbill unsuspecting subscribers until you cancel the subscriptions.
- Lottery & jackpot scams - some scammers may target you claiming you have won prizes from competitions and ask you to pay a fee to claim the prize.
To report a phone scam, you can contact the Douglas County sheriff's office through the following channels:
- Dial 911 for emergency cases e.g. if a scam has occurred.
- Dial (303) 660-7500 for suspected cases of phone scams or scammers.
- Write an email to dcso@douglas.co.us
- Visit the sheriff’s office at
4000 Justice Way
Castle Rock, CO 80109
To recognize phone scams you need to keep the following in mind:
- If you need to pay a fee to claim a prize or loan, it is probably a scam.
- If you are called by “law enforcement or federal agencies” to pay a fine to avoid arrest, taxes, or debt it is most likely a scam.
- If the person who called pressures you to make a business decision immediately it is most likely a scam.
- If the caller asks for payment to services via gift cards it is most likely a scam.
- If the caller claims to be a government agency seeking to confirm sensitive information from you, it is most likely a scam.
- Robocalls are often done with written consent from the recipient, thus if you get robocalls that you did not consent to, it is most likely a scam.
- You can perform a reverse number lookup on the number and caller ID.
- You can carry out an area code lookup to identify if the caller is in the area that they claim to be in.
To file a complaint about a phone scam visit the federal trade commission scam report portal and click on the “report now” button and fill the form.
To protect yourself from phone scams:
- Register your phone number in the national do not call registry.
- You can also use call blocking services like:
- Hiya
- First Orion
- In-built call blocking services e.g the iPhone’s call blocking services.
- Conduct a suspicious phone number lookup on google and social media platforms to see who the caller ID and phone number are registered to. Take note of the number and information associated with the number, in case you receive a call from a similar number another time.