I always ask, “Who’s calling?” And they just give a first name And then I ask, “What is this concerning?” The other day, the guy called and asked if he could speak to me. I never identify myself on the phone, so I asked the two above questions, and the guy said, "I asked if this is Rick Kitchen, are you stupid?
I got a call and the caller said they could consolidate my credit card debt. I said, “Why does my caller ID say that you’re Inova Hospital?” and she hung up on me.
That was a scene from Creep Show.
This offer expires February 15, so you are respectfully requested to do the same.
(From a fake ad in an old Cracked magazine.)
I did more or less the same with those Windows company crooks. I asked him what OS I was running. click
NoMoRobo blocks all these now, so no more fun.
The morning radio show I used to listen to had some “F with the telemarketer” calls they would play on air.
The funniest one was when the callee pretended to be a police detective and convinced the telemarketer he had called into an active crime scene. “So you had business dealings with the deceased? I need to send a squad car to your location to take a statement.”
Got one of those right after I moved. “Your computer is reporting that it is infected with viruses and trojans and…”
I replied, truthfully, “That’s amazing, because my computer has been packed in a cardboard box for a month.”
Undeterred, he went on. “That does not matter, sir…”
I hung up.
If I ever get another call from these people, I’m going to ask if they offer double-pane windows and installation. I’d refuse to believe that a Windows company didn’t sell windows.
They are trained for specifically what they do but are not very smart. I asked which of my six computers they are talking about. “The one you use the most.” What is the IP address? “We don’t have that because it’s confidential information.” Well, then how come you have my phone number? Does your mother know you do this for a living? And I hung up.
The fucker called me back to say that his mother knows what he does and he makes a very respectable living.
I heard a podcast where the host let them remote control his computer to see what would happen. They brought up a cmd window, shrank it to be unreadable, then typed in some bullshit like “Windows detects a trojan” then resized it. Except they made a typo. He went in deep and actually had these ongoing conversations with one of the more senior guys there over a period of months to try to get in the heads of the people who do this.
Telemarketer: Hi, would you be interested in switching over to TMI long distance service?
Jerry: Oh, gee, I can’t talk right now. Why don’t you give me your home number and I’ll call you later?
Telemarketer: Uh, well I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to do that.
Jerry: Oh, I guess you don’t want people calling you at home.
Telemarketer: No.
Jerry: Well, now you know how I feel.
[Jerry hangs up phone]
When this topic comes up, someone usually posts a link to the way Tom Mabe handled a telemarketeer. It’s funny if you haven’t listened to it yet.
Bad news that happened to me: I fucked with a few telemarketers, and now some of them use my phone number as a spoof number to call others. Now, along with all the telemarketing calls, I am getting an increasing number of calls from people pissed that someone using my number keeps bothering them .
That’s just a common tactic now to make a scam call appear to come from a local exchange.
I’ve never fucked with a telemarketer and every scam call I get is spoofed as local.
I worked for AT&T back in those days, and I believe it was MCI that called me to switch to their long-distance. He was a persistent guy. Even after I explained who I worked for and that I got something like $35 a month in free LD and seldom used that, he was still convinced that he was going to save me money.
Jim Florentine has a series of them too.
I think we need to bring soundboards back into service.
I got one that showed my own number as the CID. I kind of wish they would make it a felony to send incorrect CID.
My employer pays for my cell phone. I’ve had rival cellular providers try to convince me that they can save me money by selling me their package, so I ask them how much they’re going to pay me. Confused silence. Well, I’m paying nothing now, so if I’m going to come out ahead they’re going to have to pay me.
Not long ago, I got connected with a typical “lower your interest rates” scammer, so I began to read from a children’s book I had near the phone. “Once upon a time, there were three bears…” I read it very dramatically, and it was a great story (if you’re 5 years old). I kept expecting the caller to hang up, but she continued to listen, even comment, so I continued to read. It took about three pages before she gave up and dropped the line.
I love telling stories. I wish I had more callers like this; it would make my day.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ve found it effective to say politely to telemarketers “Can you hang on a minute?”
Then leave the phone off the hook and read a book.
My record (before they hang up) is 18 minutes.
And the good news is that they can’t ring anyone else whilst they wait for you…
Normally, if I pick up a call from a number that I have doubts about, I listen for a second or two before saying anything. If it is stone dead silence, I figure the call was auto-dialed, so I hang up. If it was someone who really wanted to talk to me, there should be some background noise, or if I screwed up, they will try again.
When NOMOROBO doesn’t get the call, and if I’m slightly bored, and if it’s a real person, and it a recording, I’ve lately been asking ‘does your mother cry when she thinks about what your job is?’.
One tried to make me feel bad by saying her mother was dead. I told her that when it rains, that was her mother’s tears from heaven.