I do something similar in the analog world. When someone asks for my home address, I give them 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, {Hometown}. Hey, I live in England - nobody has ever even queried it.
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I just fell for a slimy sails technique. Not terribly slimy, but not terribly clean either.
We are going through a technology change in my city, and my phone is going to be disconnected. That is real, it is going to happen.
We just got a letter, around October 7, telling us that our phone would be disconnected on around October 21. So we rushed around an got the new technology sorted, using our existing supplier, not really looking around for anything else.
Then noticed that the date, right there in the letter, was October 21 2020. They hadn’t done anything slimy at all!. They just managed to get us signed up and transferred over by the ‘lucky accident’ that we misread their fortuitously timed warning!
So not entirely slimy, but pretty dammed slick.
Mentioning phones reminded me of one from years ago. Actually it’s pretty much the same as the tactic the OP described. A guy in a hard hat and AT&T uniform came to my door, and when he answered he told me they had just installed their new fiber optic internet lines in my neighborhood, and he wanted to check that it hadn’t interfered with my phone service. Ok, fine. I don’t actually have a landline phone, and I told him so. When I did he immediately transitioned to a sales pitch for AT&T’s new broadband internet service and tried to get me to sign up. It then became pretty obvious that the “checking to make sure they hadn’t messed up my phone line” was just a ruse to get me to talk to him.
And then there was the vacuum cleaner salesman with the sales pitch scripted as to not leave any opening for the mark to say “not interested”. “Hi we’re offering free carpet cleaning of one room in your house which room would you say gets the most traffic?” Of course you can still say “not interested” after he finishes that spiel, which is what I did once I caught on to that tactic, but normal social rules make you feel like you’re supposed to answer the guy’s question.
Had $5 stolen from me by a Sonic car hops last week.
I placed a order that cost $5 and change. Gave her a $20. She acted oddly, handed me my change and bolted away. I had no opportunity at all to see what was handed to me. It was no accident. She didn’t have any other items on her tray to deliver.
She shorted me a $5. Now was I going to complain and waste 20 mins talking to a 19 year old assistant manager? Nope. She won that one.
My own damn fault for not having smaller bills. I should have given her a $5 and a $1.
I dispise thieves.
In my opinion, you should have brought it up. Even if you simply told them and didn’t wait around for counting of the drawer (the usual next step).
This is necessary in order to establish a pattern–without people calling her on it, if she is a thief she is being enabled. Besides, they probably have video these days and the manager can look and see what is going on.
If the girl is a thief, she should lose her job. If not, she should have her chance to explain her error.
That’s a good point. I was so annoyed with myself for not having any small bills. I still should have reported the incident to the manager.
It adds up quick if the car hop short changes several people a day.
My family recently did some estate planning, resulting in the deed for our house being transferred to my brother’s name. Almost immediately, he got a scammy bill from a deed recording service for $89.00. It looked very real, and I was getting ready to call our attorney when I saw the words “Not an Official Document” hidden somewhere on the bill, and I figured it out. These transactions are public records and the scammers take advantage of that. But I bet a lot of people fall for that one. It was really super scammy.
I just had to cancel my Verizon Fios, I’m moving to another state. And I’m moving in with people that already have TV/Internet/Phone and don’t want to switch.
So when I called to cancel and they started in on the questions, I told them I was moving to Australia to live with my parents ( just on the remote chance that they actually have Fios in Australia, then I could talk about how my parents were honest to god Luddites.) So I got to cancel without going through the song and dance.
I’m going to defend them, a little bit, in that in this type of home improvement sale it’s standard practice to require that all “decision-makers” are present for an in-home sales call.
I just completed a home renovation and I wanted one of those custom fitted liners for my old bath/shower so I called the local company that did that (although there’s a couple that claim to, with a little research I learned that there is really only one company in my area, the others subcontract to them.)
The in-home sales calls can require a lot of travel time and the salesman can only do so many in a day. And if they aren’t meeting with everybody that has a say in the decision, they figure they have no chance of closing the sale.
I live alone and although they asked me a couple of times if I were the sole decision maker, they made the appointment with just me. And I was a sure thing, I knew what I wanted, so the sales technique didn’t bother me.
But it’s weird to me that the guy wouldn’t meet with you if he was passing by. And it’s weird to me that they used the terms husband and wife …that’s making an assumption about the spouse that’s no longer valid even in small town America.
The scheduler and salesman I talked with didn’t even seem to care if I was married, as long as I could assure them I was the sole decision-maker.
And, as an aside, being the sole decision-maker for a major renovation was hard. So many decisions, so many ways for them to be wrong, and no one that shared my self-interest to bounce them off. It’s literally the only time in my entire life that I found myself wishing I was married.
You could’ve asked us.
We would’ve said “Oh, prairie-style trim. That’s fine.” “So we’re going to go find our own vintage doorknobs? Fine.” “Seafoam foyer, huh, sounds fine.”
As the husband in a big renovation, I can tell you that’s what I spent six months saying. And it turned out… fine!
Tovarische! You no come, we waiting for you at 2 then at 4 in am. Black van be stocked with armaments and disguises, but no comrade aru! So, we do caper without: Blow up theengs, keel moose and squirrel, get briefcase of rubles and… we spleet your share! Evvvvybody happy, vodka and pierogis for all!
Next time, be looking at calendar, is setting alarm, and get rubles!
When I look back, it seems funny that I was worried I wouldn’t stand up for myself enough, and that I might let the contractor push me into accepting things I shouldn’t.
Today I’m making him change or paint a bathroom cabinet because it’s the wrong shade of gray. Not a lot wrong, I bet most of you couldn’t tell the difference. I didn’t even notice until after the good lighting was installed. it’s a shade darker than my kitchen cabinet and I asked for the EXACT same color. Boo Hoo dude, words mean things and I didn’t ask you for a cabinet that was ALMOST the same color as my kitchen cabinets.
/End hijack
If it was me, I’d be having him change it because otherwise, every time I looked at that cabinet, I’d think “You’re such a wuss! You didn’t speak up!”
BUT, if “Boo Hoo Dude” had countered with “We’re really busy with another job, how 'bout if I just knock 500 bucks off the bill?”… well, then every time I looked at that cabinet, I’d think “You’re such a rockstar! You spoke up and saved some coin!”
Don’t forget the extra option to “protect” or “seal” the car’s finish. If you don’t buy that, your paint will oxidize to a powder within a year. And it will show fingerprints.
It might be a brokered CD, which is a large CD that is broken down into $1000 smaller CDs for sale to retail customers and often has a slightly higher interest rate.
For example, Bank ABC issues a one million dollar CD and then that’s broken up into one thousand CDs with a value of $1000 each. Those $1000 CDs can then be sold by any financial institution but it needs to be done as a brokerage transaction rather than a banking one.
I know, that’s way too much information but that could be an explanation of needing to do in person rather than online. My information is about 15 years old and they were definitely a pain in the butt to deal with.
A lot of these stores require the cashiers to offer the extended warranty and punish them if they don’t meet the quota. It’s a shame really…the people you should be mad at are management, not the poor retail clerks who have to push something they know is crap to keep their job.
Buy not purchasing the product I was hitting back at management. The cashier still got paid for his work.
A similar thing happened at JC Pennys (sp?) the last time I bought clothes there. The cashier told me I’d get 20% off if I’d apply for a Pennys Charge. I declined. She kept arguing that it was a great deal and I kept declining. Eventually I screamed at her, " Just ring up my fucking order", and she did.
I swore I’d never spend another cent at Pennys and I haven’t. The store shut down a few years later.
I had a Sirius trial that came with the new car. I got a notice in the mail for a renewal at a fairly steep price.
I called up the sales dept. and told Ludmila in Kazakhstan that I was considering canceling the service and could they do any better on the price? Nope, no bargains to be had. So I hung up and called back, getting Arkadina on the sales desk, and just said I was canceling Sirius. Whoa, how about renewing at this (much lower) rate? OK. 
As for supermarkets pricing items at 3 for $4.50, I’ve found that invariably you can get one for $1.50. It works out as a better deal since that extra avocado typically rots before you can eat it.
I hope your use of the word “screamed” is hyperbole. I really do hope that. I haven’t noticed any reason to think ill of you before.
I don’t get the same satisfaction as you, but it’s generally easier to lie and say, “already got one.”
We constantly get our doorbell rung by contractors who are “doing a job just down the street” and would be happy to give us a free estimate. I courteously point out that they aren’t wearing the solicitation tag my town requires, and they might want to check with city hall. A few of them have actually tried to push back, and I politely inform them that the cop assigned to patrol my neighborhood gets really annoyed about unregistered salespeople.
At that point, one of the pushier types actually backed away across the front yard, hand halfway up, insisting he was just trying to be helpful.
P.S., I have no idea how the cop who patrols our neighborhood feels about door to door salespeople.
Holy crap, CompUSA was bad.
Back when I would buy stuff there, they would infuriate me by having salespeople work the line at the cash registers. You’d be standing there with whatever you wanted to buy in your hand, there’d be two or three people ahead of you in line, and some dweeb would walk up to you and treat you as a captive audience, and start his spiel. Usually about an extended warranty, but sometimes about some other bullshit.
I stopped shopping there quite a while before they went out of business.
They don’t want to sell you one window. They want to sell you all the windows.
And they want to you take out a home equity loan to do it. They will have the paperwork handy. They looked up your house in some realtor’s database and found out that you and your wife own the house jointly, so they need both of you there to sign the loan they’re going to get you to take out. And they’re going to make a ton of money off the loan. And they’re going to install some garbage windows. If they bother to show up to install windows at all.
These people are beyond crooked.