
Call Centers May Know a Surprising Amount About You - SmkyMt
http://www.wsj.com/articles/that-anonymous-voice-at-the-call-center-they-may-know-a-lot-about-you-1483698608
======
tshtf
The YC funded startup NextCaller
([https://nextcaller.com/](https://nextcaller.com/)) provides much of this
information too, and it is available from Twilio for $0.10 per lookup.

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):

[http://pastebin.com/GUEaTBtD](http://pastebin.com/GUEaTBtD)

~~~
rl3
They should figure out how track the number of times someone has asked to
speak to a manager or supervisor in the past. If the caller is an outlier and
shows habitual tendencies towards doing so, the call could be routed directly
to the call center's elite special operations division.

~~~
dqv
>elite special operations division

That's the one with people who are really good at pretending like they're the
manager, right?

~~~
rl3
Sure, why not.

~~~
thfuran
I mean, it's not like I actually care how many people the person I'm talking
to manages; I just want someone who can resolve my issue.

~~~
EdHominem
Right. The goal isn't to find a real manager, the goal is to bypass the "I'm
not a manager" excuse.

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kristopolous
Yet I have to repeat all the information I just meticulously keyed in by hand
and confirmed with the computer 20 seconds prior.

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.

~~~
idunno246
I used to make ivr software. Usually there's a few different systems involved
in a single number, and you may even be transferred between numbers. It's all
held together with painters tape, so many places for a bad transfer.

When it worked, we could get everything based on caller ID without having to
ask, yet "security"

~~~
funkymike
It is important that the caller provide some information for authentication
purposes. Just because someone uses your phone (or spoofs the number) doesn't
mean that they should be able to make changes to your account.

Lots of companies outsource their IVRs. And everything is all too often
cobbled together in a just-make-it-work-right-now fashion.

------
anexprogrammer
I dislike this intensely. Presumably poorer people can look forward to longer
queues. Richer people might prefer to talk to the best agents at solving
problems over the agents that "show results with high-income callers".

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.

~~~
rz2k
They could also _not_ solve the problem. If someone isn't going to buy a lot
more from you, doesn't talk to people who will buy a lot from you, and are
unlikely to go to small claims court why give them an RMA? If some of your
merchandise was damaged in the warehouse, why not bin that for people who have
less recourse according to your market research?

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.

~~~
gohrt
...and they will defend against any accusations of discrimination or abuse by
saying "no PERSON here did anything wrong -- we use a fully automated AI
Machine Learning logistics system that optimizes our warehouse and delivery
operations. We don't know why it picks which items to give to which customers"

This is the Unfriendly AI that people like MIRI should be worried about.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Ironically, it seems that even if Friendly AIs were the default state in our
reality, malicious actors (like advertisers) would iterate on them until they
get an Unfriendly one...

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losteverything
Not really news, I'll share exp with giant monopoly Telco:

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

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_Make Spanish language assumptions using a) vowel as last letter_

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.

~~~
losteverything
Actually it was that way. Once the language was known the flag was set.

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.

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DashRattlesnake
> Next, Afiniti wants to take its technology from the call center to the
> retail world. It is working on facial-recognition software to identify
> customers when they walk into a store so the system can send the best agent
> over to talk with them.

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?

~~~
funkymike
I too find that really creepy. Yet at the same time it seems inevitable. After
all, is it really so different than going to amazon.com and seeing a front
page tailored to your purchasing habits? Or even different from an employee
recognizing you and asking if you are back to buy the widget you were asking
about last time?

~~~
CaptSpify
Yes, it is vastly different in effort. People walking up to me are wasting my
time, and distracting my thought flow. I never even register items on the
front-page of a site because I know they are irrelevant to what I'm looking
for.

------
makecheck
I'm thinking it is time to have phones "deny by default" and flip the sharing
model around. Same with addresses of any kind.

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.

~~~
tvanantwerp
I've blocked at least three different numbers from Comcast because they keep
trying to upsell me. I hope they never have a legitimate reason to call be--
they'll never get through on account of their previous abuse.

~~~
Gracana
I absolutely loathe comcast. They're the only ISP in my area and they operate
accordingly. Their range of offerings has a huge gap, so either you pay too
much for a slow connection ($45/mo for 6mbit) or go up to the next level and
pay too much for more than most people would need ($85/mo for 75mbit).
Recently when I begrudgingly had their service installed, I didn't rent any of
their equipment, but they still charged a $100 equipment rental deposit. Last
time I had their service, I had issues getting online at all, and probably
spent ten hours total on the phone with them. Their agents were friendly and
promised me the world, but they never fixed anything or kept their promises.
Either they didn't care, or they didn't have the authority. I dropped them and
went without a wired connection (used a couple gigs of cell data a month) for
several months.

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. :|

~~~
makecheck
Honestly, to avoid data consumption, I think you are perfectly justified in
installing multiple ad-blockers on your phone and even setting up router-level
domain blocking.

------
godshatter
I'm trying to think of the last time I called a company for personal reasons
where a call center would have sent me to an agent (as opposed to just getting
a receptionist). I think I had to call Steam once a few years ago to verify
myself to get my account unlocked. Years before that, I had to go through the
gauntlet of calls necessary to actually convince the cable company that no, I
didn't want their cable service any longer.

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.

~~~
sjg007
The cable co doesn't want to make it easy to unsubscribe.

------
CodeSheikh
Hmm reading this article gave me closure about all those random people from
India, Vietnam and certain South American countries that I sometimes get as a
Facebook friend suggestion. A friend (a good source) once told me that if a
person looks up you on Facebook then Facebook consider it as a "potential"
acquaintance.

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bsn54
Not really news!! Facebook knows it all!!

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SmokyBourbon
Is anybody doing this for investing? Couldn't you use social media to track
when people join or leave a company and determine whether the company is
healthy based on the quality of the employees it employs using their estimated
net worth, market value of their house, where their kids go to school, etc.?

~~~
caseysoftware
I do a talk called "social media for social evil" where I talk about these
aspects.

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](http://caseysoftware.com/blog/tag/trouble)

------
yellow_viper
paywall...

~~~
pgrote
Incognito mode under chrome using the WEB link above doesn't seem to work
anymore. Am I doing something wrong?

~~~
anexprogrammer
Worked for me in same conditions. I'm running uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger
that may have affected it.

Doesn't always work lately though - I sometimes get the snippet and sign in to
read prompt.

