pretexting
n.— «Another method is “pretexting,” in which the data broker or investigator pretends to be the cell phone account holder and persuades the carrier’s employees to release the information.» —“Online Data Gets Personal: Cell Phone Records for Sale” by Jonathan Krim Washington Post July 7, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
The words tough, through, and dough all end in O-U-G-H. So why don’t they rhyme? A lively new book addresses the many quirks of English by explaining the history of words and phrases. And: have you ever been in a situation where a group makes...