It's a scam if they already know my address?
Yes — knowing things about you proves nothing.
This trips up careful people more than almost anything else, because it feels like proof. It isn't. It's the cheapest part of the whole operation.
What a caller can easily know about you
Legally, and for a few dollars:
- Your full name and how you spell it
- Your current address and every address you've lived at
- Your age and date of birth
- Your phone numbers, including old ones
- Your relatives' names and ages
- What your house is worth and whether you own it
- Your bank's name
- The last four digits of a card
- What you've bought and roughly what you earn
- That your spouse died last year
All of it comes from data brokers, breached databases, public records, and obituaries. See how did they get my information.
Why the last four digits feel so convincing
Because you were taught it identifies you. It's what a company asks you for.
But that's backwards. It works as a check when you call them — you're proving who you are to an institution you chose to contact.
It proves nothing in the other direction. Card numbers appear in breaches constantly, and the last four are printed on every receipt you've ever thrown away.
Something being used to identify you is not the same as something identifying them.
The rule that handles all of it
Nothing a caller tells you can verify a caller. Not details about you, not caller ID, not a badge number, not a case number, not a supervisor put on the line, not a callback number they provide, not an official-looking email or letter they send you.
All of it can be manufactured, and all of it is, daily.
The only verification that works is the call you place, to a number you looked up.
That's it. That's the entire test. And its beauty is that you never have to evaluate their evidence at all.
What to say
"I understand. I'm going to hang up and call the number on my statement, and we can continue there."
A real employee says "of course." A scammer explains why you can't, or why that department won't know, or why the line is compromised, or why there's no time.
That explanation is your answer. You don't have to argue with it. Just hang up.
Why this is good news
If details about you were proof, you'd have no way to tell anyone apart. But details are cheap and the callback is free, so the test that matters is one you can always run.
Let them recite whatever they've bought. You still get to hang up and dial a number of your own choosing, and that's the only evidence that has ever counted.
Related: Can caller ID be faked? · The three steps