I've found out it doesn't work all the time but it works most of the time. Before I've started using it, I've met people in CoO in about 10% of all the time I went there. After I started using the trick, there was almost always someone (I'd say 80-90% success rate). I'd recommend to keep trying this. You should meet people more often. It's not guaranteed that you will always meet someone, but mostly you will.

So when you transition from the hull breach to hall of souls you should sit there for about 10 seconds before continuing on?