3 ms·

>This also applies to non-work related calls: someone from your credit card company is calling and asking for something? Call back on the number on the back of

by tyingq 3y ago

>This also applies to non-work related calls: someone from your credit card company is calling and asking for something? Call back on the number on the back of your card. There's a number of situations, not just credit card ones, where it's impossible or remarkably difficult to get back to the person that had the context of why they were calling. Your advice holds, of course, because it's better to not be phished. But sometimes it means losing that conversation.

macNchz 3y ago
Definitely, sometimes they'll have a case number or agent id you can use to get back to them, but there are cases where you have to assume if it's important to them they'll continue to nag or reach out on another channel. I have had at least one situation where I spent a while trying to get back to a quite convincing/legitimate sounding caller this way, where, as I escalated through support people it became increasingly clear that the initial call had been a high quality scam, and not in fact a real person from the bank.
- codebje 3y ago
  I put in very limited effort in returning cold calls. The contact is being initiated by the other party, the interest in the exchange is theirs, and the onus on making it work is theirs. Companies, including banks, don't call you to protect _your_ interests, they call you to protect themselves.
  - BenjiWiebe 3y ago
    Except some banks and credit card companies will call you to notify you of fraud on your account.
munk-a 3y ago
My mother recently started having to deal directly with utility bills and the like and this was some information we impressed very early on. You should never agree to billing or hand over CC/account information in a phone call you didn't initiate. She hasn't run into an issue yet - most utilities, online stores and other entities have call in numbers if you need to resolve a billing dispute. That random company you bought a plumbing valve from has an office somewhere with a secretary that gets a phone call maybe three times a month from customers looking to resolve issues - and Amazon has mostly centralized support for small sellers and has lines you can call to resolve any disputes you have which may forward you to the original sale party but often just resolve the issue directly. Honestly, the worst experiences are usually with large companies that funnel all customers into massive phone centers - I've probably lost the better part of a week to Comcast over my lifetime.
- tyingq 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm talking about situations where it's a department that's not tied to the main call center. The credit card fraud people, for example[1]. Or, with Comcast, some guy saying your modem return was missing a piece, etc. Those are often hard to reach by calling the main number. [1] For at least one place, the people that proactively identify things that could be fraud and call you...they aren't the same people you call to report fraud on your own. Why? No idea.

by tyingq 3y ago

macNchz 3y ago

Definitely, sometimes they'll have a case number or agent id you can use to get back to them, but there are cases where you have to assume if it's important to them they'll continue to nag or reach out on another channel. I have had at least one situation where I spent a while trying to get back to a quite convincing/legitimate sounding caller this way, where, as I escalated through support people it became increasingly clear that the initial call had been a high quality scam, and not in fact a real person from the bank.

codebje 3y ago
I put in very limited effort in returning cold calls. The contact is being initiated by the other party, the interest in the exchange is theirs, and the onus on making it work is theirs. Companies, including banks, don't call you to protect _your_ interests, they call you to protect themselves.
- BenjiWiebe 3y ago
  Except some banks and credit card companies will call you to notify you of fraud on your account.

munk-a 3y ago

My mother recently started having to deal directly with utility bills and the like and this was some information we impressed very early on. You should never agree to billing or hand over CC/account information in a phone call you didn't initiate. She hasn't run into an issue yet - most utilities, online stores and other entities have call in numbers if you need to resolve a billing dispute. That random company you bought a plumbing valve from has an office somewhere with a secretary that gets a phone call maybe three times a month from customers looking to resolve issues - and Amazon has mostly centralized support for small sellers and has lines you can call to resolve any disputes you have which may forward you to the original sale party but often just resolve the issue directly. Honestly, the worst experiences are usually with large companies that funnel all customers into massive phone centers - I've probably lost the better part of a week to Comcast over my lifetime.

tyingq 3y ago
Yeah, I'm talking about situations where it's a department that's not tied to the main call center. The credit card fraud people, for example[1]. Or, with Comcast, some guy saying your modem return was missing a piece, etc. Those are often hard to reach by calling the main number. [1] For at least one place, the people that proactively identify things that could be fraud and call you...they aren't the same people you call to report fraud on your own. Why? No idea.