As I can see from others, I'm not the only person to have encountered this scenario.
I was called from a company - naming themselves Travel Agents Direct. The person that I spoke with was named "Kelly Heinzman" and was nice enough; however, there were inconsistencies with her information-gathering questions that immediately put me on the defensive.
When calling she said that my name was entered because of some bank dealings that I had with other vendors. She said that my bank name, routing number and account number had been given to her in some type of list and that my name had been "randomly" chosen to receive a free trip. She also said that I had $400 in free vouchers for this trip.
She then began asking me questions about my bank, bank routing number and account number.
Having worked for a bank in the mortgage industry for 12 years, I knew that she was attempting to ask questions that bankers would not ask. She asked me for the name of my bank and I told her. She asked me for the routing number and I told her that I didn't have my checks so I wasn't sure of the routing number.
It occurred to me that if my name, banking information and other things had been given to her along with other information from other vendors, she should have this information already and didn't need the information from me. So I gave her some incorrect information just to see if she had my information or to find out if this was an "information-finding" phone call.
Just so all of you know, the routing numbers of all banks are listed within a series of books that banking staff members have access to. All a person needs to determine the routing number of a bank (if they have these books) is the name of the bank. The listing for every bank in the world (and all of their out-lying branches) is printed annually and sold to banks for their processing department (s). Not only does it capture the bank name; but it also shows the address, phone number, routing number, financial numbers... Etc.
With that being said, I didn't figure that she'd fall into the trap of giving her the wrong routing number so I gave her a 10-digit - rather than 13-digit account number - which she "verified" as being "accurate". I then knew that she was not being truthful with me. My bank doesn't even use 10-digit account numbers.
I made an excuse at that point to end the call and was told that someone would call me back to complete the information.
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