Yesterday an unknown woman phoned my aunt's house and asked to have her
> call a toll-free number about her order.
> When my aunt called, the greeting was "Marlboro Company." The woman
> asked my aunt her name, phone number, and date of birth. Then she
> asked if she smoked or had ever smoked. Then, without ever mentioning
> an address or what had been ordered, she said my aunt must have been > the wrong person.
> If they'd thought my aunt had ordered something, wouldn't they have
> refreshed her memory? What was the point of the call?
> Choreboy
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you certain your aunt did not
> misdial when calling back? What you described sounds like a technique
> used by bill collectors/skip tracers trying to verify a phone number
> with a given name/address. Telemarketers on the other hand usually
> just make their pitch without taking a risk that the potential customer
> will neglect to return the call. And, bill collectors/skip tracers
> depend heavily on the ANI which an 800 number invariably produces for
> them. I do not think the Marlboro people told your aunt she 'must have
> been the wrong person'; but rather, that she had reached the wrong
> person, i.e. misdialed on her call back. She probably misdialed and
> got on a telemarketer's (for Marlboro) incoming line. PAT]
"Marlboro" ended up saying they were looking for somebody else with my aunt's name. So "Marlboro" knew what it was about.
If the first call were on the level I would have expected the caller to name the company. Wouldn't a customer be more likely to return a call if she recognized the name?
When you order something, you give your address, at least your billing address. Nobody else with my aunt's name lives in her city. I don't think there was any mixup.
You don't normally give your date of birth when you order something. If it were about an order, "Marlboro" would have asked my aunt's address, not her date of birth.
A person's smoking history wouldn't show whether she had ordered something even if the item were cigarettes. These questions sound like a smoke screen to make my aunt think she had called the cigarette company.
Did scammers get my aunt's date of birth? Would that be useful?
Choreboy