Telephone numbers in the Dominican Republic

Area code 809 was created in 1958, and was designated for Bermuda and the Caribbean islands. However, Cuba, Haiti, the Netherlands Antilles, and the French West Indies did not participate in the NANP. Beginning with Bermuda in November 1994, and The Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Barbados in 1995, several countries in the Caribbean received individual area code assignments from the NANPA, effectively splitting area code 809. By 1999, it was retained only by the Dominican Republic,[1] following the departure of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines from using the area code.[2]

Area code 829 was added to the existing numbering plan area in the Dominican Republic to form an all-services distributed overlay plan on January 31, 2005. Earliest central office assignments were possible on October 1, 2005.[3] The relief was needed because of the growth of mobile phone communication in the Dominican Republic, starting in the mid-1990s with prepaid telephone cards, and growing quickly through the early 2000s with the launch of two cellphone carriers, Orange (now Altice) and Centennial (now Viva), in addition to the preexisting CODETEL (now Claro Dominicana) and TRICOM (now Altice Dominicana).

The expansion in telecommunication services continued and further relief for the numbering resources was needed in 2009, when an additional area code was assigned for the numbering plan area, area code 849.[4] Earliest central office code assignments were possibly on July 1, 2009, but did not occur until 2010.[5]

Telephone fraud scams once involved area code 809; it was being used since calling international numbers from the United States is charged at a higher rate than domestic calls.[6] The charge is set jointly by the originating and terminating countries; the foreign country portion of the charge could be very high, and there was no regulation by anyone. There may have been a resurgence with wireless telephones.[7] The victim receives a message on their answering machine to call a number with an 809 area code. Since there were many new area codes being introduced in the US, the victim thinks nothing of it and dials the 809 number. The number dialed is however an international number with a share of the revenue going from the foreign telephone company to the operator of the number (the party that got the call to be placed). The victim could be put on hold indefinitely, and billed for each minute they are on hold. This is a form of fraud, though technically legal.[8]

More recently, a similar scam has emerged due to the prevalence of wireless phones which display callback numbers automatically, known as the "one ring scam". The person perpetuating the scam calls the victim via a robodialer or similar means, sometimes at odd hours of the night, then hangs up when the phone is answered with the hope that they will be curious enough to call the number back. When the victim does this, an automatic $19.95 international call fee is charged to their account, as well as $9.00/min thereafter. Similar scams have been linked to Grenada (area code 473), Antigua (area code 268), Jamaica (area code 876) and the British Virgin Islands (area code 284).[9]

• List of NANP area codes
• Area codes in the Caribbean
• Telecommunications in the Dominican Republic

• North American Numbering Plan Administration (NANPA)
• Telecommunications in The Caribbean
• Federal Communications Commission regarding the 809 scam
• AT&T webpage regarding the 809 scam and subsequent spam. Retrieved September 17, 2007.
• scambusters.org webpage regarding the spammed version of their 809 warning. Retrieved May 7, 2006.
• List of exchanges from AreaCodeDownload.com, 809 Area Code
• List of exchanges from AreaCodeDownload.com, 829 Area Code
• List of exchanges from AreaCodeDownload.com, 849 Area Code