Slashdot Mirror
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?
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...