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Someone Calling You At Home With A Survey? Don't Bite On Their Bait...(The Scammers Are Working Overtime) Plus: Why More Customer Service Operators Sound Like "Apu" From "The Simpsons"... And: How You Can Do Some On-Line Sleuthing To Find Out Who A Phone Number' Assigned To
August 21, 2003
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Dear Ben: Last night (at 8:35 pm) we were contacted by a woman claiming to be the "secretary of Dr. Prado, Head of the Texas Department of Health." She gave her name, but did it so rapidly that it wasn't clear...so I didn't understand it. She claimed to be collecting data about the health of people in Texas, and said that we had been "selected." Selected by the Texas Department of Health was implied, however-when, where and why-was not mentioned. I promptly told her that I didn't give out personal information over the phone to someone I didn't know, said goodbye and hung up. Since we have Caller ID, I checked the phone number which originated from the 208 area code. I checked out the number on the Internet and even though the exact number wasn't listed, the area code and prefix did show up as an Idaho phone number. We don't understand why someone from a state agency would be calling us on a Sunday when all state offices are closed. I've already warned my friends to watch out for similar types of calls.
Bobbie B., via e-mail
Dear Bobbie: Too bad everyone isn't as suspicious and resourceful as you are. Nice work on all fronts! Let's go down the list of holes in this story and make everyone a little smarter about the latest tele-scam making the circuit.
#1 Never give out any personal information to anyone on the phone: The caveat here is don't give out personal information unless you are the one that initiated the call and then only if you have an extremely high degree of confidence that the number you're calling legitimately belongs to a person or company that should have access to your private information. For example: A legitimate time to give out personal information might be to discuss your account by initiating a call to your credit card company. Getting their phone number either off the back of one of your credit cards or off of your monthly statement is a credible authentication method.
#2 Thanks to new and extremely stringent federal laws that went live in April of this year-HIPAA: Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-everyone should be aware of the much higher levels of security and confidentiality surrounding all health information-related transactions. Health care providers or associated players in the health benefits payment puzzle (your HMO, PPO or other type of insurance company) can be fined up to $250,000 and jail time of up to 10 years for every violation of HIPAA...so the chances of a telephone-driven survey about your health smacks of a scam right out of the blocks in my book.
#3 Let's assume that your caller was legitimate. Just because they're located in Idaho doesn't automatically make them a scam. Most telemarketing and customer service centers are located in all sorts of remote places; states like Idaho and Nebraska provide attractive incentives for companies to set up tele-shop. Cheap labor combined with cheap per-minute long distance charges are the biggest motivating factors, which companies like Delta Airlines know about first-hand: They've contracted with Bombay, India-based companies to handle some of their reservations telephone calls. Why? A story from The New York Times last May reported that the airline would save $12 million over the next two years by outsourcing some of their calls to India. A large pool of college-educated, English-speaking wannabe customer service phone operators willing to work for just over $200 a month explains why more of your customer service calls may have a decidedly foreign "sound" coming from the other end of the phone.
Dose of Dover For The Week: Suspicious of a phone number and not sure you want to return a phone call? Or maybe you want to simply check out the city-and-state of area code and "phone number prefix" origin. Here are two of my favorite resources that I use quite frequently in my line of work: Try www.reversephonedirectory.com to run a phone number and see who it's assigned to (as long as it's a listed number, of course) before you call them back. And if you're want to figure out where an unfamiliar number is located, http://decoder.americom.com always delivers the tele-insights I'm looking for at the best price...free!
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