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.