A Phone Phreak Scores (April, 1985)
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     This is another story to add to the annals of social engineering, one that
we all can learn from...

     A few months ago my Mom had some people refinish and blacktop our driveway.
So she called some companies in the phone book, and she chose the cheapest one.
They came and did most of the work, and Mom paid them, providing they came back
soon to finish the blacktopping job. This all sounded fine, but after several
weeks of the company calling up and postponing the final work, Mom wanted it
done. She decided to visit the company at the address listed in the phone book,
because she would always get an answering machine when she called them, but
when she got there, she found out that it was just the back room of a
storefront and that the company had vacated it a few months earlier. When she
tried calling them, their number had been changed. So I did a CNA on their new
number for Mom, and she visited the new address that I got. When Mom got to the
new address she found a vacant lot. It was at this point that it started to
sound pretty fishy to Mom and I. But how could we find out where they were, if
they gave a fake address to the phone company?

     That's when it occurred to me to call the business office that handles that
company's telephone. I called and they answered: "Your number, please."  So I
gave them the company s number, and I proceeded to tell them how I did not get
my last phone bill, and how I wanted to make sure they were sending it to the
right address. They told me the real name and address (not the one at CNA or
Directory Assistance, which was the one it was listed under; there is a
difference, you know), they asked if I was  "Mr. So and So,"  to which I
responded  "Yes."  Then they asked if I wanted to change the mailing address. I
said,  "No, that's my partner's address. No need to change it. Thank you."

     And that was it. I found their address. Mom visited their new location, 
which happened to be a trailer in the middle of a big field with a telephone 
and a power cable going into it. When she found the people at the company, they
were quite startled, because it seemed that they did not have a license to do 
the work that they were doing and had several other customers and some
government agencies looking for them. Because Mom had the goods on them, they
were obliged to finish our driveway, and that's all Mom wanted after all.