1. Ambiguous may, which could refer to permission or to possibility

2. Doesn't specify which party is permitted to do the recording/might be doing the recording

Makes me wonder why that phraseology is so widespread. Why not use We might record this call?

If this took place in a two-party consent state then your consent alone is not enough, you'd also need the caller's consent which my company doesn't have. If you were to record the call without letting the employee know beforehand, that recording would be illegal.

Gonna be a fun call with PayPal tomorrow!)

In some jurisdictions, all that is required is an audible beep (or even no notice at all). In others, full consent [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#...

Funnily, the phrasing "may be recorded" is not interpreted by the corporations as "the customer may be recording as well" and in many cases their default policy is to not talk to you if you've declared you're recording. Single-party consent jurisdictions make it even more muddy.

Don't they simplify it? You're on the call. If you consent to recording, you've given your single-party consent. You don't need to tell the company you're calling you're recording.

This is possibly worse than staying silent, given you're betraying bad intent.

IANAL but AFAIK the "this call is recorded ..." warning that they automatically play gives license for both sides to record, even in a 2 party consent state.

They were trying to screw me, and the state insurance commissioner finally had to step in and put them in their place. The person who caused the accident had the same carrier I did, and since they knew they were on the hook for the charges either way, they made no effort at all to adjudicate fault. They wanted to split it 50-50, and I wasn't having it.

In other words, phone number plus a 6-digit extension, otherwise voicemail.

Sort of like your code, but allowing a person to talk to you in the first place.

(If it isn't directly possible, I'm fairly sure using some sort of iot telephony servive would help getting hundreds of legitimate numbers. Now only to build a cell interceptor to funnel them all to one phone!)

Last I knew, they used T-Mobile for their cellular connection.

but it could be like letting smart people organize their life using email addresses in a similar way: [email protected]

AFAIK there is no state where anti-recording rules are asymmetric between participants. Either both have an expectation of non-recording, or neither do.

Only a couple times have I used it on purpose, but it has triggered on me accidentally a handful of times over the years, usually in weird situations like in my car (older cars, with Bluetooth-only car phone systems). Makes everybody nervous, myself included.

So they are giving you explicit permission to record the call if they say the call may be recorded.

May is about permission or likelihood. Can is about capability. A telephone call can be recorded even if it may not be recorded. That is the recording apparatus exists and is connected needing only the signal to start recording but permission is not forthcoming.

It is only in colloquial speech that the two are equivalent.