4 ms·

> I asked if I could call back a phone number listed on Google.com and she said sure - this number is listed on google.com and you can call back with your case

> I asked if I could call back a phone number listed on Google.com and she said sure - this number is listed on google.com and you can call back with your case number, but there may be a wait on hold and I might get a different agent. I googled it and sure enough, it was listed on google.com pages. I didn't call back though. This is where a big mistake is. Always, ALWAYS phone or contact back using the company’s official channels. Because if they have sufficient info about you, scammers can make a call sound hella legitimate, but one thing they still cannot do is pick up the company’s phone for them when you phone in. Especially if you call from a hardline, which requires compromising the phone company’s switching equipment. Even my father, nearly 86 with a 5th grade education and slowly sliding into dementia, knows better than to uncritically accept being directly contacted. He’s already short-circuited several scams (of various types) in the last few years by hanging up and phoning back in himself.

jrochkind1 2y ago
> Especially if you call from a hardline, I have no idea where I'd find one of those.
philipwhiuk 2y ago
Yeah. In reality the number your phone carrier provides is basically a guess. It does in no way guarantee who is calling you.
pests 2y ago
This used to not be safe though, in the age of landlines. I forget the details, but most of the country was wired in a manner that both parties of a call had to hang up to end the connection. You might hang up, go find the official phone number, but when you pick the phone off the cradle you would still be in the previous call. They could fake the dial tone and you would be none the wiser. I remember pranking friends with this back when I was young. Harmless stuff.
- quesera 2y ago
  I think this was in crossbar switches. The initiator of the call had to hang up for something like 8 seconds. This was useful if they called you and you answered in the kitchen, but wanted to run to another room to talk. Not that I think it was designed to be a feature! But I used it that way. If you didn't trust the caller, you could hang up, wait 10 seconds, then get a good clean real dial tone. Remember dial tones? Anyway none of this is relevant in modern switching systems, much less cellular networks.
  - quesera 2y ago
    > The initiator of the call had to hang up for something like 8 seconds Sorry, correcting myself: If the initiator of the call hung up, the call would be ended immediately. If only the receiver hung up, the call would remain "live" and resumable for about 8 seconds.
  - pests 2y ago
    Thanks for that bit of history. I seem to remember form previous conversations with people that this was not the standard for all of America. Probably something related to east cost vs west coast.
    - quesera 2y ago
      > east cost vs west coast More likely population density/growth in the region. Most of the US was all Bell System at the time. If the area was urban, or growing quickly (adding new phone subscribers), they'd get the newer electronic (ESS) switches first, starting around the early 1970s. If the area was suburban and population-stable, the electromechanical crossbar switches would live on for another 20+ years. There were some rural parts of the US using even older Strowger/SxS switches until the mid 1980s at least, probably later! There's a great story about the development, by a Mr. Strowger, of the first electromechanical telephone exchange switch. Previously, calls were connected manually, by operators. Mr. Strowger was an undertaker, and he believed that the operators were sending callers to his competition unfairly. So he invented an automatic switch to remove the human element.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> This is where a big mistake is. Always, ALWAYS phone or contact back using the company’s official channels. The problem, and the reason why that scam approach works half the time, is that calling back is a huge PITA these days between 1) endless routing menus or some "smart" AI bot that is f*ing useless (seriously, I have never been helped to my satisfaction by one of those), 2) long long long hold times to get to a human, if you ever do, because every single company is always "expecting greater than usual call volumes" -- wtf? call volume distributions are Gaussian, ok? so adjust accordingly.
- naniwaduni 2y ago
  Calls are also just inherently more likely to arrive when call volumes are above average. There are more calls then.

jrochkind1 2y ago

> Especially if you call from a hardline, I have no idea where I'd find one of those.

philipwhiuk 2y ago

Yeah. In reality the number your phone carrier provides is basically a guess. It does in no way guarantee who is calling you.

pests 2y ago

This used to not be safe though, in the age of landlines. I forget the details, but most of the country was wired in a manner that both parties of a call had to hang up to end the connection. You might hang up, go find the official phone number, but when you pick the phone off the cradle you would still be in the previous call. They could fake the dial tone and you would be none the wiser. I remember pranking friends with this back when I was young. Harmless stuff.

quesera 2y ago
I think this was in crossbar switches. The initiator of the call had to hang up for something like 8 seconds. This was useful if they called you and you answered in the kitchen, but wanted to run to another room to talk. Not that I think it was designed to be a feature! But I used it that way. If you didn't trust the caller, you could hang up, wait 10 seconds, then get a good clean real dial tone. Remember dial tones? Anyway none of this is relevant in modern switching systems, much less cellular networks.
- quesera 2y ago
  > The initiator of the call had to hang up for something like 8 seconds Sorry, correcting myself: If the initiator of the call hung up, the call would be ended immediately. If only the receiver hung up, the call would remain "live" and resumable for about 8 seconds.
- pests 2y ago
  Thanks for that bit of history. I seem to remember form previous conversations with people that this was not the standard for all of America. Probably something related to east cost vs west coast.
  - quesera 2y ago
    > east cost vs west coast More likely population density/growth in the region. Most of the US was all Bell System at the time. If the area was urban, or growing quickly (adding new phone subscribers), they'd get the newer electronic (ESS) switches first, starting around the early 1970s. If the area was suburban and population-stable, the electromechanical crossbar switches would live on for another 20+ years. There were some rural parts of the US using even older Strowger/SxS switches until the mid 1980s at least, probably later! There's a great story about the development, by a Mr. Strowger, of the first electromechanical telephone exchange switch. Previously, calls were connected manually, by operators. Mr. Strowger was an undertaker, and he believed that the operators were sending callers to his competition unfairly. So he invented an automatic switch to remove the human element.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

> This is where a big mistake is. Always, ALWAYS phone or contact back using the company’s official channels. The problem, and the reason why that scam approach works half the time, is that calling back is a huge PITA these days between 1) endless routing menus or some "smart" AI bot that is f*ing useless (seriously, I have never been helped to my satisfaction by one of those), 2) long long long hold times to get to a human, if you ever do, because every single company is always "expecting greater than usual call volumes" -- wtf? call volume distributions are Gaussian, ok? so adjust accordingly.

naniwaduni 2y ago
Calls are also just inherently more likely to arrive when call volumes are above average. There are more calls then.