Almost got scammed by something like this when our dishwasher broke last year. Found on Google Maps a listing for “[locality] Appliance Repair”, in a small shopping center storefront nearby. Called the number and sounded like I had reached a large call center, with the sound of other people talking and typing in the background, so this was the first red flag (the storefront on the map would have been this small little place). They wanted a credit card number in advance, for which they’d charge $75 or something as a deposit, also unusual for this kind of business around here. Halfway through giving them my number my spidey sense reached a tipping point and I hung up.
Double checking the map later and looking at Street View, the storefront was conveniently obscured by a tree.
If it was one of my relatives, it would have been that or some geo coordinates to an almost impossible to get to place resulting in nothing (or a sign that said "gotcha").
Maybe she was distrustful and did not want the driver to learn her precise home address.
It is perhaps a bit paranoid, but when trying an unknown and unusual service for the first time, not over the top, especially if she is a girl living alone.
They also gave the the wrong address once. The building number was 29Z and the sent me to 292. It just happened that I ran out of phone credit so I couldn't call them. I just wondered around town for a few hours before heading home.
They did have one's address in the phone book. Now, you had to have a decent city map, and some sense of the city numbering scheme to know where that address was.
Your comment reminds me of a video clip I saw where someone dialed 911 and proceeded to "order a pizza," thus giving them her address. She got lucky and the dispatcher was fairly quick to figure it out and didn't hang up on her.
Also wonder if the correct number to dial would have been 301-555-1212 as that's directory assistance in Bethesda rather than local directory assistance.
It didn't matter because in order to check someone had to call and wait an hour so no one did in mail order purchases/shopping networks because you had an address to send the police to.
I used to work in a building in SF where the address was either 123 Main St. or 123 Mission St. Someone in sales had an issue giving that address to a cab driver, IIRC. Amusingly, the company did (and still does) ML for fraud detection.
I had that experience recently; being told on the phone to a utility company "Sorry, but that address does not exist." to which I replied "I'm sure it does because I'm standing in it right now."
In the 90s as a teeneager working in a mall, I had a customer who had an emergency, I called 999 and gave my address as $shopname, $mallname but the call handler didn't know the mall and wouldn't send an ambulance without a street name. I imagine the local responding ambulance would have trouble locating it by street name since the mall is giant and has entrances on several streets.
They got a tip narrowing her location down to a single city.
We don't know where that tip came from, but sounds like she already messed up by reaching out to friends and family, or maybe logging into an old internet account.
It was only a matter of time before they found her, it just so happens to be the yoga job ad that got her.
Right - it's extremely unlikely. The fact is, as a small business, I make it a point of communicating with my first treasured customers, so I know almost all of them by name. In almost all cases, I know how they've arrived at my business via friends, recommendations, family etc. And given the situation, I made a very confident guess.
They know the vicinty. If there are a lot of restaurants or other businesses, they don’t know exactly which business I was at. If I have an iPhone. They don’t even know that unless it was some place I needed directions to.
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