In the last two weeks, someone's been dialing homes across Kansas City offering a lower credit card rate that seems too be good to be true, and what KCTV5's investigative team uncovered has the Missouri attorney general's office on the case.

Cecilia, a Northland resident, got one of the automated calls urging her to push the No. 9 on her phone.

"I heard credit card and then I heard reduced rate," she said, at first thinking it might be her credit card company.

After she followed the instructions, a voice came on the line and said, "'I'm with card services and my name is David and I am a negotiator with Visa and MasterCard,' and I said, 'What does that mean?'"

The man on the line explained that he had the power to negotiate a lower credit card rate. While most credit card companies charge you 15, 18, even 20 percent, the negotiator claimed he could knock it down to 6.9 percent.

But then, Cecilia said, he asked her something strange.

"He next asked me if I had credit card balances of $3,000 or more," she said. "I said, 'No.' He paused and he said, 'Oh, well what are your credit card balances?'"

Cecelia said she thought, "Shouldn't he know that," and she ended the call.

That same phone call has come into Kansas City homes again and again. At least 30 people have called the attorney general's office to complain. They're all similar though sometimes the voice that comes on the line isn't David. It's Rachel or Stan, and on several occasions, the recipient's caller ID displays 407-000-9821.

The area code is out of Orlando, Fla., but 000 is a way to disguise where the calls are coming from, a tactic called spoofing.

Representatives from Embarq, Time Warner and AT&T said without a court order, it was nearly impossible to trace the calls being made to Kansas Citians, so KCTV5 contacted Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster.

"These telephone calls could be coming from Missouri, from the Midwest, from outside of the United States. They could be coming from another country. These types of ID theft crimes are just increasingly hard to pin down," Koster said.

Because of KCTV5's investigation, Koster has ordered Kansas City area phone companies to turn over records of the 407 number coming into Kansas City homes.

"KCTV5 was the one that brought it to our attention and we want to communicate with people to call our office if they have been taken advantage of," Koster said.

Most of the homeowners who have complained hung up before giving out personal information. Kevin Taylor, with Kansas City's Oppenheimer & Co., said it was "highly unlikely" and "almost comical" to think a credit card company would call you and offer to slash their profits.

Finance experts said in this economy, it's a good time to warn people again about phishing scams.

"If you're getting a phone call that's offering to bail you out, be very very weary of it," Taylor said.

Koster said his office could know within days where the automated calls are being made.

Meanwhile, there's a bill going through Congress that would make spoofing -- faking or hiding caller ID information -- a crime. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., is the bill's co-sponsor.