Call Centers May Know a Surprising Amount About You
wsj.com
wsj.com
The extent of the data available from a phone number is a rather frightening. I'm surprised we haven't heard more about services like this from privacy advocates. Here's a sanitized lookup of a friends number (which is actually a Google Voice number):
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/report-income-c...
I can't remember the name of the specific database I am thinking of that I know exists, I think its owned by LexisNexis and LexisNexis advertises they have this information - https://www.lexisnexis.com/government/solutions/literature/s...
You also self report your income to credit card companies.
That's the one with people who are really good at pretending like they're the manager, right?
Maybe something more along the lines of net worth?
"status": "successful"
On a more useful note, aboutthedata.com will show you what Acxiom (one of these customer analysis companies) knows about you. Request the "partner marketing data" emailed to you since that has most of the interesting data. I got this last week and it was fairly accurate. Although I had to laugh at the item: "Prefers BlackBerry".
"social_links": [
{
"type": "facebook",
"url": "https://www.facebook.com/XXXX"
}
]
> DOB, Gender, Marital Status, Household Income, Home Ownership Status, Presence of Children, Home Market Value, Length of Residence, Hight Net Worth, Occupation, & Education Level
The reverse append used to be the favorite of the direct mail industry that was the most sophisticated with modeling before advent of the online ecosystem.
You can infer a lot about the person from their profile if it's public and also can try to match back to existing customer records if it's private.
EDIT: "reverse append" is the act of appending data to a phone call record based on the phone number.
Any pointers on opting out of such services?
Give it a try, create a partially fake identity of a fairly rich man and see what happens ;)
No opt-out makes NextCaller a creeper—like all the others.
Under those the whole operation of the site would be illegal unless the individuals reported on granted their explicit consent.
I'm always dismayed when it's clear the person on the other line is manually entering the string of digits that I just also entered by hand.
If you let customers type in an account number, for example, people will type in random numbers with a slight preference for numbers beginning with 1. However if all your real account numbers begin with a 400, then you can programmatically exclude all calls with accounts entered that don't match a regex of begins-with-four-zero-zero. That filters out cranks and people who are unqualified to even call. If they enter zero, 9, 1234, just dump them to dialtone. Superficially it sounds like bad security for your seven digit identifier to really be like 4 digits of security because they all begin with 400 but its actually a feature for filtering.
Tangent, but "Compliant Cooperative Customer" totally sounds like a buzzword companies would use.
It's no wonder, then, that spending money and engineering time on something that would cause customers to be something unmeasurable, like being slightly less aggravated, is not prioritized or even cut, as being extravagant. To that end, despite Comcast and airlines low customer satisfaction ratings, they seem to be doing alright.
When it worked, we could get everything based on caller ID without having to ask, yet "security"
Lots of companies outsource their IVRs. And everything is all too often cobbled together in a just-make-it-work-right-now fashion.
It's all held together with painters tape
They're as much concerned with a CSR accessing accounts inappropriately as they are with a fraudster gaining access to customer accounts. And that CSR verification happens by the CSR typing in your information.
Part of this is to verify identity and verify nothing went awry pulling up your account.
If the system even pulled up your account at all. The center I worked had people put in their information, but it didn't forward it to the call center worker. The main benefit of keying the information in is to get you to use the automated system first, but also to route you into the correct call que for your area.
You see, different states had different regulations on how fast you needed to answer the calls, some of those had penalties as well. In addition, hours are different in different time zones. Since we serviced coast to coast, this was rather important.
Additionally, there is an element of anger diffusion. Folks will call in screaming, yet will generally calm down a little while verifying everything. This is utterly helpful.
I forsee, and hope for, some pushback against the increasingly egregious abuse of our info in the name of selling us ever more crap. I'm quite glad I've joined little online up to my real name, though google have probably figured too much out.
In the distant past an unethical person running a store could do those types of things to people from a family that was usually picked on in a small town or to people whose ethnicity or race meant that they wouldn't be believed if they reported that a store was acting in bad faith or not honoring their terms.
I agree with you that it is a terrible thing to do, though I think it is more of a return to the old normal compared to recent past, rather than something entirely new.
This is the Unfriendly AI that people like MIRI should be worried about.
A far better solution would be to have a 900 number for the wealthier customers to call where you charge them a premium for faster service.
They'll self sort and you don't have to do anything.
Both Cust svc and collections: high $$ spenders routed to special agents and treatment.
Any elected official was PMT. Permanent no treatment. Never contact or disconnect for any reason.
Credit scores used to route and treat accts
Repetitive "anything's" were flagged and those flags were attached when call presented to agent.
Goal was to minimize talk time. Reduce refunds (DAKs). Route to proper language.
Make Spanish language assumptions using a) vowel as last letter or npa/nxx if known.
Tons of tests and controls. But removing avoiding "clutter calls" was driver
Surely the algorithm was more sophisticated than that? Otherwise people with Italian surnames were in trouble. E.g. Jay Leno, Al Pacino, Frank Sinatra, etc. would be greeted with "¿Que pasa?"
And that also meant you were on the wrong side of "associates" of the Mafia. E.g. Gambino, Gotti, etc.
We laughed (and argued) at the implications. The few Italians working in that tech part of the company would scream loudly.
It was more of a problem with acquisition direct mail and billing statements. Messaging on the outside of the envelope was often simply guess work as to the language.
That's super creepy. I'm kinda glad I habitually wave away store workers who proactively approach me. The only response I can think of to stuff subtle manipulation like this is increased skepticism of these kinds of day to day interactions, which is pretty sad.
I wonder if some kind of anti-discrimination/racial profiling case could be made against such systems, to get them banned or at least curtailed?
If a business wants my phone number, the transaction should be: hey $COMPANY, YOU tell ME the number you will call from so I can whitelist that number (and remove it later once our business is concluded).
Why should it be so easy to sell and share and link up personal information? At every step, individuals should have the equivalent of a revoked key at their disposal to prevent sharing.
If the modern web could serve me text articles without including 1500kB of javascript and advertisements on every pageload, I'd be happy to just stick with cell phone tethering. :|
Am I the odd man out? I guess that 30+ years of having to call in for something every now and then and the pain that always involved has soured me on the whole experience. I doubt that getting an agent that knows I'm a fan of Godzilla movies or whatever other nonsense they will grab from my social media sites will actually help the experience in any meaningful way.
When I advise companies working on a major new initiatives and hiring for those, that they ask employees not to update their Linked In for a few months, don't mention the company on social media, etc. It means competitors are slower to see the change.
I've been writing about it off and on for ~10 years too: http://caseysoftware.com/blog/tag/trouble
Doesn't always work lately though - I sometimes get the snippet and sign in to read prompt.