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I used to do the same, but then discovered my bank's fraud department comes up as unknown.. ugh. Calling them back is far more annoying than just answering all

I used to do the same, but then discovered my bank's fraud department comes up as unknown.. ugh. Calling them back is far more annoying than just answering all the calls.

ChuckMcM 12y ago
In my imaginary "ideal" world, the computer would answer any incoming call, check to see if the number was in my database, if not it would then trace the origin of the call. It would then present the caller with a simple turing test, it would answer, say "Good morning/afternoon/evening" and wait 3.8 seconds. If it got no response it would simply hang up. If someone started talking it would take a message.
- nowarninglabel 12y ago
  Google Voice basically does this.
igonvalue 12y ago
How's this for annoying? I once received a call from a bank's (Citibank?) fraud department, but wasn't sure it was really them or a scammer. I asked for a callback number and then called the known number on the back of my card to verify that the fraud department call was legitimate. The Citibank representative said that they were unable to either confirm or deny that that was a valid Citibank number.
- poslathian 12y ago
  From your own description this sounds super annoying
- lmkg 12y ago
  I received an aborted call (hang up after half a ring) from a non-anonymous number. When I searched for that number online, the only results that came up were forum discussions of wondering whether it was really Chase's fraud-detection line or a scam. For the most part, they concluded it was a scam, in part because several Chase branch managers had not heard of the number. Fortunately, I came to the opposite (and correct) conclusion, seeing as how I had received the call 30 seconds after attempting to use my Chase card for a large international purchase online and was able to quickly get that issue sorted. Still, it seems to current state-of-the-art that the rest of the bank is not aware of the phone numbers used by their fraud departments.
- ipsin 12y ago
  What worked well for me was to tell the caller that I wanted to call them back for security reasons, and write down the number. Searching for that phone number will (if it's legit) likely point to a contact page on the bank's website.
  - igonvalue 12y ago
    In this case, a Google search didn't turn up any results on an official website, but didn't turn up any any definitive proof that it was a scam either.

I used to do the same, but then discovered my bank's fraud department comes up as unknown.. ugh. Calling them back is far more annoying than just answering all the calls.

ChuckMcM 12y ago

In my imaginary "ideal" world, the computer would answer any incoming call, check to see if the number was in my database, if not it would then trace the origin of the call. It would then present the caller with a simple turing test, it would answer, say "Good morning/afternoon/evening" and wait 3.8 seconds. If it got no response it would simply hang up. If someone started talking it would take a message.

nowarninglabel 12y ago
Google Voice basically does this.

igonvalue 12y ago

How's this for annoying? I once received a call from a bank's (Citibank?) fraud department, but wasn't sure it was really them or a scammer. I asked for a callback number and then called the known number on the back of my card to verify that the fraud department call was legitimate. The Citibank representative said that they were unable to either confirm or deny that that was a valid Citibank number.

poslathian 12y ago
From your own description this sounds super annoying
lmkg 12y ago
I received an aborted call (hang up after half a ring) from a non-anonymous number. When I searched for that number online, the only results that came up were forum discussions of wondering whether it was really Chase's fraud-detection line or a scam. For the most part, they concluded it was a scam, in part because several Chase branch managers had not heard of the number. Fortunately, I came to the opposite (and correct) conclusion, seeing as how I had received the call 30 seconds after attempting to use my Chase card for a large international purchase online and was able to quickly get that issue sorted. Still, it seems to current state-of-the-art that the rest of the bank is not aware of the phone numbers used by their fraud departments.
ipsin 12y ago
What worked well for me was to tell the caller that I wanted to call them back for security reasons, and write down the number. Searching for that phone number will (if it's legit) likely point to a contact page on the bank's website.
- igonvalue 12y ago
  In this case, a Google search didn't turn up any results on an official website, but didn't turn up any any definitive proof that it was a scam either.