Scammers scraping phone numbers, street addresses for spam call and postal mail campaigns

Laurie and I have put our home and cell phone numbers on the U.S. federal Do-Not-Call list, but that hasn't stopped solicitors from calling. Curiously, though, the sales calls we've been getting tend to come in clumps (more pronounced that your typical Poisson distribution) and often ask for the same wrong name.

Clearly, our numbers have gotten on some list, associated with a variety of wrong names. Given that we tend to get a new string of calls every month, we figured this isn't random chance resulting from someone writing down a wrong number on an application someplace. Furthermore, the folks who call us rarely have any idea what the do-not-call list is (tipping us that they don't work for large, established call center firms), and often will keep going with their pitch even after we tell them that there's no one by that name here.

What's up? By talking with some of these callers, combined with some online sleuthing and a little deduction, here's what we've figured out.

In an effort to get around the federal Do-Not-Call list, scammers are scraping telephone numbers from the Internet and selling those lists to marketers, telling would-be buyers that these are "clean" lists of people who have agreed to take business calls. (Presumably, because they've published their numbers online, though the buyers aren't told that's where the numbers came from.)

The "better" lists associate the numbers with names found elsewhere on the same website; other lists don't bother even with that effort. The buyer doesn't realize that the names and numbers don't match until they've bought the list and started making calls. The lists aren't just pitched to telemarketers, either. Every month, we get pitches from a no-name phone company in our postal mailbox, addressed to people registered on my wife's violin website, but using our office street address.

It's the same principle behind e-mail spam, but this time applied to phone numbers and street addresses.

Of course, making phone calls and sending snail mail costs much more than sending out electronic messages. Who pays for those calls, then? Again, not folks working for brick-and-mortar call centers, where numbers can be traced and owners fined for Do-Not-Call violations. The callers tend to be people who have signed up for "work at home" scams, where the scam is that they've paid money for a "lead list" that turns out to be a bunch of random names and numbers scraped from the Web. The callers figure out within a few calls that the names and numbers never match, so that's why they don't stop when you say "I'm sorry; you must have the wrong number. No one by that name lives here." They already know that; they've paid for the list, so they're plowing ahead with the pitch hoping that you'll bite anyway.

My favorite callers have been those selling work-at-home schemes. (Like, oh, say, the one you just bought, buddy?) Other callers have claimed to represent collection agencies, which can be fronts for phishing scams. ("Oh, I'm sorry for bothering, to confirm that you are not so-and-so, could I have your Social Security number?" No, you may not. FWIW, I never tell these callers my real name, either.) Still, though, I wouldn't rule out that some failed e-tailer isn't out there trying to make a few bucks selling "bad debt" to would-be collectors that consists of nothing more than scraped phone numbers and phony accounts.

So... scammers scrape phone numbers (and sometimes street addresses) from the Internet, creating bogus lead lists that end up fueling phishing scams, work-at-home scams, and fly-by-night marketing campaigns. It's scammers scamming scammers. I'd say that they're all just getting what they deserve, if they weren't annoying me in the process.

Robert Niles also can be found at http://www.themeparkinsider.com