I tried that once; they came back with, “All of them.”
To which I asked, “Even the really old ones which aren’t connected to the Internet?”
:pause:
“Sorry for bothering you.”
click
Lately I’ve been paying attention to the number that appears on the phone (one of the few things I think are good about cell-phones) and if I don’t recognize it I don’t even bother to answer. If I’m really impatient, I just push the voice-mail soft-button. It’s an election year so I’m not in the mood to respond to surveyors asking my opinions on hot-button issues.
But I used to have fun with it. If I didn’t recognize the number I’d answer in Japanese or Russian or Spanish or Chinese (all of which I happen to speak at least well enough to answer the phone properly). And if I was in a really playful mood I would answer, “This is {fake name} in IT what is your emergency?”
First off, such a long phrase upon picking up the line tends to confuse the robo-calling software. If it’s a real person, the response is often something like “Uhhh…hello?”
To which I repeat “This is {name} in IT, what is your emergency?”
“Am I calling a business?”
“Yes. This is an IT emergency phone number. I handle network and database problems and the phone company routes the charges through the callers’ phone bills. Do you have a network or database emergency?”
The callers have never stayed on more than 5 seconds after that, but I’m sure I could ad-lib something about getting the caller’s name, IP address, and call-back number.
For a couple of the car warranty calls I would play the caller and tell them that I needed to reinsure my Suzuki.
“Oh, an old Samurai four-wheeler? We can do that.”
“No, it’s an old VX800”
“Well, let me look that up…” they tend to hang up when they realize it’s a 1980’s motorcycle.
—G!