Getting help without getting scammed by the help
Find a genuine telephone number for any company you deal with, and never again take one from a search result, a pop-up or a text message.
Something has gone wrong, you have tried what you can, and you have decided to call somebody. That decision is sensible. The next thirty seconds are where people lose thousands of dollars.
Typing "Xfinity support number" or "PayPal telephone number" into a search puts you into a market. The top results are advertisements, and anybody may buy one. Beneath them sit directory sites built to look official, whose only content is a telephone number. On the other end is a call center, with hold music, a script, and a polite person who will ask to look at your computer.
The reason this works is that those numbers were printed before you had a problem. Nobody could have placed them there for you to find in a bad moment.
Key points
- Get a telephone number from the bill, the card or the box, and never from a search
- Recognize the three sentences that end a call: control your screen, your password, a safe account
- Say why the number at the top of a search result is the dangerous one
What to remember
- The number came from a document mailed to your house. That single fact is what makes the call safe.
- The number from the object beats the number from the screen, every single time.
Try this
Take a card, write on it: your bank’s number from the back of your card, your broadband provider’s number from the bill, and the name of one person you would ring first. Put it where the telephone lives. That card is the single most useful thing in this course, and it takes five minutes to make.
Practice: Getting help without getting scammed by the help. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.