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by abestic9 1763 days ago
Google called me wanting to confirm my business address and asked me a bunch of personal details, as well as a 6 digit code that was going to be sent to my number (the one they called me on?). I refused and told them to give me a number to call them back on and they said they didn't have that facility. I then asked if they could email me or point me to a form and they said they could only do it on that same call.

After 10 minutes in a verification tug-of-war, the rep escalated me to someone who did provide proof they were actually Google (using a field I updated in my account). All up it took 15 minutes and felt very fraudulent until they finally gave me some helpful context.
1 comments
ThrustVectoring 1763 days ago
> told them to give me a number to call them back on

I hope you managed to communicate that you needed it to be able to independently verify that this number belonged to the purported caller. Eg, if it's from your "credit card company", the number should show up on the credit card company's website.

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egberts1 1763 days ago
ummmm, caller ID are easily spoofed, no?
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wildfire 1762 days ago
yes.

And they are starting to understand more and people know that too.

Typically banks, when challenged here in Australia, will ask you to hang up and call the number on the back of your card (debit or credit).

Normally they give you a reference number so when you are speaking with someone, you can bypass things and pick-up with the person you were originally speaking with.

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