How should one react to being asked if they sell illegal narcotics?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Ah, Caller ID Avengers! I work for a fairly large company, and outgoing calls show up as the main number on Caller ID. When the called party calls back, if they happen to hit “1”, they end up calling Customer Service, which is often me.

This is fine if the person is actually from a company who is one of our customers. Being Customer Service, we are equipped to help these people. If I didn’t call them, I can help them in some fashion, usually by getting them to their assigned representative.

The problem is when, say, Joe Blow in production uses a hallway phone on his break to call a confused elderly relative. Then, that person calls back, has no idea which prompt to push to get a human being, mashes 1 and gets me.

That conversation invariably goes something like this: “Are you a customer of ours? Do you know someone who works here? No, I can’t ask around to see who called you–over 500 people work here. I think the best thing to do is to wait and see if they call back. Really. I’m sure they would have left a message if it was important.”

Next time I get a call like this, I’m going to ask, “Are you a drug dealer? I’ll transfer you to Bob in General Assembly. I’m sure he’s buying.” :slight_smile:

42

Just to point out, it was a legit number, not a 900.
And I’m more of the person who would be buying, not selling, depending on said drug.
This is all hypothetical for ban avoidance sake, except for her asking, that happened.

43

And as already pointed out, the numbers used in the scam are not 900 numbers. They look like legit numbers. The only reason 900 numbers got brought into this was because someone had the mistaken belief that 900 numbers were the only kind of call where the caller could be charged.