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Fake Google Salesmen Are Actually SEO Telemarketers (vortex.com)
Long-time Slashdot reader Lauren Weinstein writes: It seems like almost every day I get junk solicitation phone calls "from Google." They call about my Google business local listings, about my not being on the first page of Google search results, and so on -- and they want me to pay them to "fix" this stuff. When I look up the Caller ID numbers they use, I often finds pages of people claiming they're Google phone numbers. Sometimes the Caller ID display actually says Google!
Is Google really doing this? Negative. NONE of these calls are from Google. Zero. Zilch. Nada. These callers are inevitably "SEO"; (Search Engine Optimization) scammers of one sort or another. They make millions of "cold calls" to businesses using public phone listings (from the Web or other sources) or using phone number lists purchased from brokers. If you ever actually deal with them, you'll find that their services typically range from useless to dangerous.
Is Google really doing this? Negative. NONE of these calls are from Google. Zero. Zilch. Nada. These callers are inevitably "SEO"; (Search Engine Optimization) scammers of one sort or another. They make millions of "cold calls" to businesses using public phone listings (from the Web or other sources) or using phone number lists purchased from brokers. If you ever actually deal with them, you'll find that their services typically range from useless to dangerous.
Google actually takes these guys on. I wrangled one of them into giving me a mailing address to pay by check and reported it to Google they were prompt in responding,got me in touch with their legal department and took as much info as I could give them. I saw on the news 2 months later that they filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit against that exact company so it's clear they're always building cases against these guys.
I answered one of those calls that was spoofing an area code where I still have lots of friends. When I realized what it was about, I started asking questions about how it worked, what they did, etc. The guy said they had arrangements with Google to promote pages and it was guaranteed.
He asked what kind of business I have. "Oh, I work for Google. By the way, we both know this is bullshit, right?" "Oh, no no no sir! It is not bullshit! It is real!" "Well, thanks for all your company information. I'll give it to my boss this morning and you'll be out of work." "Oh, no no no! There is no need to be doing that!" You could hear his butt pucker from over the phone.
I don't work for Google, but he didn't either so I don't feel bad.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If I don't recognize the number, I do not answer. If it's legit, they'll leave a message.
The truth behind this started long ago, and only seems to be more and more applicable as the years go by.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
For the last 2 years or so I had been getting a relatively high string of calls to my home [unlisted, "Telephone Preference Blocked" {UK opt-in scheme to keep telemarketers out}] number, with all of them trying the "Windows Technical Support phone scam.
Then some time in march I got a call from someone who claimed to be calling from my Telco/ISP [phone and internet service via the same provider] and who began by telling me they would prove their identity by quoting me the Customer Account Number that is only printed on the paper copy of my quarterly statement. Funny old thing, it was the *right* number.
I went through a lengthy and convoluted process to get the Police to give me a crime number and then contacted a UK part of my telco [not trusting their India Call Centre] and to my surprise, [having got passed the bored tekkie] and having explained that the only explanation for this disclosure would have been if there were a criminal or criminals working within the Telco themselves, I suggested that they might want to check their records and determine who had access my client account information in the preceding 30 days...
The calls stopped, dead. I mean, not one since then.
The *only* explanation I can offer is that all the criminals calls I was receiving were actually being made by a rogue unit, working inside my telco and using my telco's own phone lines and equipment, to scam UK clients...
Funny old thing, my telco is doing the best job ever of pretending this didn't happen - right down to "disappearing" the incident reference number they gave me when I first spoke to them. Fact is, however, the calls stopped.
It would be entirely unfair - and misleading - to draw connections between the outsourcing of customer support services to third-world locations and then the rise in boiler-room scams from those locations. Having said that, I always wondered how these scammers were able to afford the international call charges. Even had they been using Skype with dial-out from a local PoP, it would have still cost them a lot of money to prosecute their attacks. But if they were embedded inside UK telephone operating companies, using the India-based call centres, then calling and scamming customers would be so very, very easy.
It's getting to the point these days where almost anyone calling you is a crook or a scammer...
Answer the phone with "Hello," and as soon as it's clear it's a telemarketer, say "You're on the air!" Respond to anything they ask with "You Are Live! On the Air!" There's usually a long pause while they search in vain for a relevant branch in their conversation tree, then they hang up.
Up next,
That guy from "Microsoft" that offers to fix your PC if you just download this program is fake too.
So are the guys trying to sell you that product for your embarrassing sexual ailment by email.
So are the websites that just need you to enter your credit "to verify your age".
Seriously, Slashdot, the mediocre-to-shit ratio (used to be signal-to-noise) has fucking plummeted around here.
"Fake Google Salesmen Are Actually SEO Telemarketers"
Allow me to be the first to say, "Duh".
I used to get these calls quite a bit. Then I started wasting their time and making their lives a living hell. I would quiz them on stuff, take forever to make up my mind, then change my mind, make them repeat themselves over and over again, and generally ruin their mood for the rest of the day. They'd be cursing by the time they hung up on me. :)
Eventually they stopped calling, lol. I almost miss them, it was kind of fun to creatively torture them and waste their time.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If solicitors call you on the phone, DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THEM. Tell that if you need a product or service, YOU will track it down yourself...
Part of the problem here is that most people acts as enable for telemarketers and advertisers. We should teach young people in elementary through high school to ignore telemarketers and advertisers, and track down the product or service you need yourself. If more people did this, they'd get better products and services, plus it would help solve the problem with robocalls the government is trying to solve. Folks, if it is telemarketed or advertised, then the product or service is probably inferior to what you can find with a little effort on your own. Also, very few products or services marketed in this manner are indispensable.
Best not to interact with them at all. Any interaction gets you on a "live prospect" list, which they can sell to other scammers.
--Don't answer if you don't recognize the caller. Your friends or business contacts will leave a message.
--If you do answer, hang up the second you figure it out. Don't ask to be put on their do not call list, don't "press 9 to be removed," Anything proves to them that there is a live person at that number.
--Get on the real true Do Not Call list: https://www.donotcall.gov/. Once this takes effect you know that any unknown caller is a scam, because the scammers do not honor the Do Not Call list.
--Anytime you get a mortgage, credit card, insurance, etc. fill in and submit their privacy form when you apply, before they can sell your name. The form should have a tick box saying no calls, emails or mail not directly related to your account. And of course, no selling to third parties.
When the scammers get no-answers or immediate hang-ups for a while, your number becomes less valuable. My calls have slowly faded away since I started doing these things.
Of course you will still get political calls (in US, first amendment?), and calls from people you have done business with. But these last should honor Do Not Call if you ask. And you know where they are.
When the "IRS" kept calling, using a mobile phone number from a local area, I decided to have fun with it. I put them on my autodial for my fax machine. The number came back to a boiler room operation. After the third ring it forwarded and the ring tone changed slightly. Lotsa background noise. The operation had about six people. I know because the fax ran about four hours....and most of the folks clearly don't know what a fax machine identification tone ( booop boooop ) is ...... probably called them 30x and listened to each one hang on, yellling "this is IRS inspector Dildo ! Identify yourself." I hope I caused enough problems to save at least one dupe.
More fun and less work than keeping microsoft on the phone as my 85 year old grandfather and letting slip only 10 min in that I have an Apple computer.
Really? Because google as a search engine has become almost worthless due to to all the results that are returned as a result of SEO and paid placement.
Really? Because google works great for me.
Not being facetious... just giving my anecdote.
What kinds of things are you searching for?
Most of my searching is technical related (either about nuclear engineering or programming in Python or C++). I find that Google is fast and the top couple of hits are almost always what I want.
Can you give some examples of searches that go awry?
Some are, but that doesn't stop anybody. The scammers operate from out of reach of the (fairly toothless) law anyway.
The solution is for more people to develop the mindset that any phone number you don't recognize does not have to be answered. If it's important, they'll leave a message. No, there is no life-threatening emergency that will bring death and destruction if you don't answer that unknown number. If you don't have caller ID or voice mail or at least an answering machine, I'm not sure what century you live in.
I get at least ONE of those calls, a day, running the largest hotel for 40 miles around. I usually go, "Oh, I gave the girl/guy [switch it up, keep life interesting...wait, not like THAT] my credit card number and SS#. You should have it on file. (click)" My BOSS gets 4-5 cold calls a day, though not typically from the (ahem) Google people. I just tell them he was recently killed in a car accident, you'll have to call back in a few months, once they get the estate sorted out. It was really bad, beheaded. They're still looking for the head."
News for Senior Citizens. Stuff that Matters to AARP...
Seriously, do any tech guys not know this? Oh also, did you know Google didn't make the iPhone?
I don't remember ever receiving a legitimate cold call on my current land line and I have had it for almost 17 years. I get phones call on it 4-5 times a week mostly someone claiming to be an IRS agent, Microsoft technical support, or card service but it's not Rachael anymore.
I think the only legitimate calls I get on my land line are to confirm appointments for the doctor's office and vet or the pharmacy letting me know prescriptions are ready and these are few and far between.
There is asymmetry in the understanding of technology between many small businesses and its customers. Every business looking for customers should have a Google business listing and the SEO scammers are screwing it up. Any business can get the Google listing (the box with a map, pictures, hours, web site, etc) free by themselves, but many don't have the time or knowledge to do it. Google authorizes a group of trusted business verifiers to help and many are volunteers. When going into a small business to honestly help, these folks often encounter mistrust of intentions, due to the scammers having soiled the path.
Me: Oh, good, I've got about 20 windows in my house that need washing inside and out. How soon can you be here?
Keep repeating as long as necessary. It's good to keep them on the line so their signal-to-noise ratio drops.
Then there is the IRS scammer. A Sheriff's deputy friend of mine said, "You're going to send me to prison? Really? Free room and board sounds great! Which prison you gonna send me to?"
If you're on the do-not-call registry, then no cold call would be legitimate unless it's a political ad or a charity. Though I personally haven't heard of any legit charity that solicits donations in this manner. The only "charities" I've gotten cold calls from are fake ones. Avoiding political spam is easy: When you register to vote, just give them a random fax number.
My girlfriend is a realtor, so they called her to sell her ad space on Google. As she was sitting next to me, I pulled up Google's advertising policy. It already seemed suspicious that Google would be cold calling people to sell ads, what with being so huge that advertisers should be coming to them, not the other way around. So the people on the phone admitted they were not google, and were reselling ad space. But the promises they were making directly contradicted details of Google's policy, and when I pointed this out, they insisted they were legit, had been doing it for years and were right down the street from Google's main campus. They seemed deeply hurt that I suspected they were a scam, but it never smelled right.
Can you give some examples of searches that go awry?
Just do a search using a few keywords.
Wow... I have never seen someone admitting that openly that they CAN'T provide any examples
bickerdyke
The only "charities" I've gotten cold calls from are fake ones.
While not exactly fake the "Lupus Foundation" and "Disabled American Veterans" sure seem to call a lot even when I tell them to never call me again.
Time to offend someone
I forgot about politics but I get town hall meeting teleconference calls that are legitimate. I didn't intend to but accidentally checked the wrong box on a form and just never got around to canceling it. I may have listened to the meeting twice in a couple years, and never requested to ask a question.
Search engines are almost worthless in my native language because cocksuckers can't tell the difference between "inevitably" and "invariably", or really any other word in the language, god damn you all.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I've never seen someone not understanding that reply as "do something, anything, and you should be able to see for yourself". I thought that my explanation to what and how I'm searching would be enough.
You are making a claim, and others are saying that they have been unable to substatiate your claim. If you cannot provide an example of something you claim happens every time a certain action is performed, an action other people regularly perform without that result, we have to assume you are talking through your arse.
They actually call me, a lot. I'm in the SEO industry myself and these guys call my phone or at least auto-call my phone regularly. It's a numbers game and Google has filed suit on at least one of the companies doing this in the last year or so. These companies are preying on small mom and pop type companies that may have a website issue and not know anyone that can help them. It's annoying and frankly it's hard to believe that these methods are still profitable even at scale. If more would become aware then they wouldn't be.
The reason that these scams are so successful is that there is real need for professional SEO services. But there's simply no way to separate the wheat from the chaffe. (Or is it that there is no wheat? I can't always tell). My family's small business is a perfect example. We sell beads and jewelry. Nobody actively working at the store is a techie (although they do things with pliers and tweezers that would make your head spin). We know that our website is barely serviceable from an SEO standpoint and frankly, we could probably use some professional help.
As the "designated techie" in the family (which I am decidedly not), the family forwards me an SEO solicitation at least once a week. Of course, I patiently (or not so patiently) explain each time that it's a scam. But the fact remains that the family knows we need this type of service at some level. So the temptation to believe that there's someone out there that actually understands this stuff better than us (which shouldn't be hard) is so very great. But it's tough when the entire industry appears to be a scam. Sad, really.
I've been getting these for some years, I've also had them claim to work for Yahoo & Bing.
It's probably neither organization, rather instead it's a fake one pretending to be them. I get similar calls from the "Fraternal Order of Police and Firefighters", which is a real charity, but they don't solicit donations over the phone, which means the one making the calls is fraudulent.
I mentioned those two because they are rather notorious because while they are actual charities they are among the worst as they spend vast amounts on cold calling people, print advertising, conferences, and overhead while very little actually goes to help anyone.
Time to offend someone