Scammers call me every day! It used to be ‘Heather’ or ‘Rachel’. Now there’s some scam for ‘seniors’. A new one has the same pitch, but now they’re a ‘law firm’ and Ms. Recording is named ‘Kelley’. These fecal nuggets ignore the Do Not Call list. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got a copy and are using it for their phone list! Ha! Anyway, I just got another one…
I pressed one and some Indian guy started on his script. I immediately started talking over him. ‘Do you like airplanes?’ ‘I am calling about your credit card…’ 'Yeah, but do you like airplanes? ‘Cause airplanes are really cool. There’s this French jet on eBay right now for $75,000…’ and so on. Like, I just started talking about whatever I saw on my computer screen at the moment… which happened to be planes. And I bounced from one kind of plane to another, based on where my eyes came to rest. The scamster kept trying to steer me back to credit cards, but I kept asking him if he liked planes.
I managed to tie up this moron’s time for almost three minutes. Almost three minutes he could have been using stealing money from someone. After I mentioned ‘Credit cards? Oh, I don’t have any credit cards. I don’t believe in them. I pay everything with cash or check,’ he hung up on me. Da noive of him!
I think next time I’ll pretend I’m hard of hearing, and see if I can get Mr. Boiler Room to shout into his headset so all of his ‘friends’ can point and laugh at him.
I’ve been getting calls from the “Warranty Department” for my car, trying to sell me an aftermarket warranty. They’re clearly attempting to insinuate that they are from the manufacturer without stating so.
I was home sick the other day and so decided to play with them.
Telemarketer: “How many miles are on your car, sir?”
Me: “Hmm, let me go check” …set phone down for two minutes…“About 600,000”
TM: “Ok, umm, did you say 600,000?”
Me: “Yes, 600,000”
TM: “Ummm…Isn’t your car a 2013?”
Me: “Yes, but I drive a lot. I drove to the moon a couple of times, that really added up”
TM: “The moon? Ok, you drove to the moon?”
Me: “Yes, it’s lovely in the spring. have you been?”
TM: " Ok, I don’t think we can help you, good day!"
Friend; ‘This is ‘name’?’
Teleshit; ‘Uh, yeah.’
Friend; ‘Subjects are down but you need to call in a clean up crew.’
Teleshit; ‘?’
Friend; ‘I expect remaining payment within 24 hours or you will see me soon.’
Hang up.
Next call, pull a Tom Mabe.
I like your yelling idea…get some power tool close to the phone to act like you are in a loud environment and yell at him as loud as you can. Bonus points for ‘misheard’ questions.
Teleshit: ‘Do you have a credit card?’
You: ‘I HIT IT HARD WHEN I HAVE VIAGRA!!!’
That’s what I used to do, exactly!
Oh, yes, I’m very interested! I’m on another call right now - let me end it and I’ll get back to you in a second."
Then put the phone down and walk away.
I haven’t had a landline for years. Don’t miss the sales and robo-calls one bit.
A little, but I received (and will receive, when they call again) the benefit of having an outlet for my various personae. With working at home most of the time, just me and the boss in the department when I’m in the office, and an SO who thinks my characterisations are stupid, it’s hard to be a Deaf Old Man or Confused Old Man or Working Class Brit or ADHD Squirrel or Creepy Pervert or Peter Lorre or…
Wasting thieves’ time pisses them off, and that’s worth my time.
Oh, another is you can practice singing! I usually stick to Beatles songs as I know the words so well and the vocals are in my range. I’m not very good but they are patient
This thread got me laughing about a call I got some years back. I was expecting a call from a buddy regarding his coming over to do some work on his motorcycle, the phone rang and I picked up and answered “Gap’s Harley Shop” in a very loud and “macho” voice. Turned out to be an Earnest Young Man selling some product for septic tank “health”. Supposed to keep you from having the honey bucket truck make frequent visits. I answered “Hell boy, we piss in the weeds around here!” in the same voice. Earnest Young Man gulped, stammered and meekly said he didn’t suppose I’d need ABC company’s product. I laughed for 5 minutes.
Still get a sales call once in a while on my cell, probably because it’s my only phone.
I don’t mind actual sales calls so much. Since both phones are on the DNC list, I rarely get them. But the Heather/Rachael/Kelley calls are total scams. They call phones that are on the DNC list. They won’t stop calling, even when you tell them not to. They’re not actually selling a product; they’re trying to steal money from gullible people. (I am particularly sensitive to this, since scammers got to my father after his traumatic brain injury. Fortunately, the credit union returned his money and wrote the loss off as fraud.)
As irritating as sales calls are, they’re just people making a living. The calls I’m talking about are the fraudsters, who know they’re stealing from people and just don’t care.
Before this November I was getting constant calls from the biggest scammers of all in the USA: Politicians. Nice how they excluded themselves from the Do Not Call law! Most are robo calls with a recording so no way to screw with them.
