It’s just too easy to be scammed.
One of the more consistent stories I hear about goes like this:
- I was having a problem with Some Random Service.
- I called the Some Random Service support number.
- They ended up charging me a bunch of money.
- My problem is still not resolved.
The issue, of course, is that this person didn’t talk to anyone at Some Random Service at all. They fell victim to a scam.
It’s an easy one to fall into. Fortunately, it’s also easy to avoid.
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Searching for a support phone number
Searching for a support phone number can easily lead you to scammers, especially if the real service has no phone support. Scammers buy ads or game SEO hoping you call them instead. The best approach? Go directly to the official website for contact info to avoid fraud.
Searching for support
If you use a search engine (Google or any of the others) to search for a support phone number, there’s a high risk that what you find will be a scammer’s phone number. Particularly when the service in question doesn’t have an actual phone number to call, scammers are more than happy to try to intercept your desire that there be one.
There are a couple of ways this happens: spammers buy ads, and they abuse the SEO system.
(Throughout this article, Some Random Service refers to the name of the example company we’re dealing with, and https://somerandomservice.com represents its real, legitimate, website.)
Scammers purchase ads
Google is driven by advertising (other search engines may also be, to varying degrees). Anyone can purchase ads that appear in search results. If they’re willing to pay enough, the ads even appear above the normal (also known as “organic”) search results.
So if you search for “Some Random Service customer support number”, you might get results such as:
- An ad titled “Some Random Service customer support” with a phone number owned by a scammer.
- An ad titled “Get help with Some Random Service, call our customer support” with a phone number, again owned by a scammer.
- An actual search result for Some Random Service pointing to the Some Random Service website and, if there is one, listing the real Some Random Service support phone number.
- Additional actual search results that probably relate to Some Random Service customer support but may or not include the Some Random Service website.
Right next to the first two results — the ads — there is an icon that is easy to miss: a small “ad” symbol.
The symbol is typically tiny — not much bigger than a single character. Many people don’t notice it, and they mistake the advertisement for a legitimate, organic search result. They call the number listed there not knowing it’s a scammer, not the real service.
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Website owners want to appear at the top of the page of search results so you’re more likely to click and visit their website. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the collection of techniques website owners use to try and make that happen.
For example, I can create some information — both off-page that you don’t see and on-page that you do — or I can structure what I’ve written to optimize this page for the phrase “search for support phone”. My hope is that someone searching for that phrase will find a link to this page high in the search results and choose to visit.
Scammers do this too. In fact, they abuse SEO techniques to achieve the result.
For example, let’s say you have a webpage that offers telephone “support” for Microsoft Windows, even though you’re not related to Microsoft, and your page is a scam. If you can somehow create 1,000 links on 1,000 different web sites to point to your page using the phrase “Microsoft Windows support phone”, this could fool a search engine into thinking you have a Very Important Page when it comes to “Microsoft Windows support phone”, and as a result place your page very highly in the search results for that phrase.
Scammers use compromised sites and comment spam to create thousands of those links around the web.
Let’s assume scammers have done this kind of dirty work for our “Some Random Service” search. Now if you search for “Some Random Service customer support number” you might get results such as:
- Any ads you see at the top are probably benign and loosely related to what you’ve searched for. Since these are typically legitimate ads, they’re usually not trying to fool you.
- One or more official-looking actual search results relating to “Some Random Service customer support phone” but linking to a scammer’s site. The scammer successfully fooled Google into thinking these pages are legitimate sources of information.
- One or more search results pointing to official pages from “Some Random Service” about their customer support phone. These rank lower than the scammer because the scammer fooled the algorithm that determines which pages are the most legitimate source of information.
- Additional actual search results that probably relate to Some Random Service customer support but may or not include the Some Random Service website.
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Of course, scammers can and do use both techniques (buying ads and gaming SEO) at the same time.
When both techniques are in play, if you search for “Some Random Service customer support number”, you might get results such as:
- An ad titled “Some Random Service customer support” with a scammer’s phone number.
- An ad titled “Get help with Some Random Service, call our customer support” with a phone number, again owned by a scammer.
- One or more official-looking actual search results relating to “Some Random Service customer support phone” that link to the scammer’s site. The scammer successfully fooled Google into thinking these pages were important on the topic.
- One or more search results pointing to actual official pages from “Some Random Service” about their customer support phone. These rank lower than the scammer because the scammer fooled the algorithm, and they’re lower than the ads because the scammer paid enough money to place the ads on top.
- Additional actual search results that probably relate to Some Random Service customer support but may or not include the Some Random Service website.
As you can see, it’s a misleading mess.
The bottom line: you cannot trust search results unless you’re very observant and know what to look for. Period.
What to do instead
Given everything we’ve just learned about how scammers poison search results, it’s not safe to search for contact information like this.
Instead, go to the website directly. In my fictitious “Some Random Service” example, I would type in “somerandomservice.com” to visit the website and then look for contact information directly on that website. Not the search results, but on the actual “somerandomservice.com” website.
That way, you know you’re getting the information directly from the source. If there is no phone number listed for support, then you know that Some Random Service probably doesn’t offer support by phone. Any phone numbers you see in search results are almost definitely scammers.
People will search anyway
There’s an odd side effect from the way many people go to websites.
Instead of typing in askleo.com, many people type “ask leo” into their favorite search engine and then click on the first result. This is one reason terms like “Facebook”, “Outlook”, and “Hotmail” are some of the most searched-for terms: people are just using search as a way to get there from here.1
Those results can be poisoned by scammers, too. It’s not common, but it can happen.
If you use this technique (it’s an easy habit to get into, I’ll admit) then make sure you have landed where you intend to go. If you expect to visit Ask Leo!, make sure “askleo.com” appears in the browser address bar.
Do this
Avoid using search when looking for specific contact information like phone numbers. Instead, visit the website of the company you’re dealing with and get the information there. If you do use a search engine, be extra cautious.
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Footnotes & References
1: One reason people do this is the proliferation of top-level domains like “.ai”, “.io”, “.guru”, and even “.coffee”. It’s often easier to search for the company than it is to keep track of what their domain name is. (And yes, leo.coffee exists.)
Time was when there were exactly five (count ’em, FIVE) TLD’s: *.com, *.net, *.edu, *.gov, and *.mil.
Now there are a gazillion bazillion, not one of which I’m particularly interested in. (I’m still waiting for someone to invent *.calm, because it’s a homophone for that “other” TLD! LOL!)
I’m kinda partial to https://leo.coffee
You can get a TLD from ICANN for the low price of $185,000 (or more) plus an annual maintainance fee.
My rule of thumb is that if a service I use is free, there is no support phone number associated with it. If the service is not free, then I look on the web page for a “Contact” page. If that page has no phone number, I use whichever method the site offers to contact them.
End of story,
Ernie