If I get such a call while I’m driving somewhere, I’ll go where my imagination leads me. Sometimes I act like I’m a shut-in a hospital begging for medicine or help. Sometimes I just yell at them. Other times I just answer with a bunch of pointless responses like “oh yeah?” Really. Wow. Of course. Or I pretend English is not my first language and play games with misunderstanding phrases. I’ve even pretended to be a child asking if the caller is my Mommy or Daddy. The possibilities are endless.
I have recently taken to amusing myself by pretending to be an answering machine…
“Hello,
If you’re calling with an Amazon scam, please press 1.
If you’re calling with a banking scam, please press 2.
If you’re calling with a Paypal scam, please press 3.
For all other scams, please stay on the line and a representative will be with you shortly.”
If you are someone that I know, or do business with, your name is programed into my phone as a contact. New doctor, someone working on my car, expecting a work quote from a plumber, etc, then your identity will show up on my phone as a contact.
No contact information, I will not answer your call. I am not curious about your need to call me. People are used to just answering the phone, as if it may be important, maybe it is my grandson calling for bail money from Canada.
If your number does not show up in my Contacts list, I am not answering your call. For any reason. I do not care if someone may die, they probably won’t. That is what emergency services are for, call them.
This is MY phone, my device to use when it see fit, it does not belong to you, it is not a public service that I must respond to.
My telephone persona for spammers is “not home”. 99% of the time I don’t answer any call whose number I don’t recognize. 0.9% of the time if at I’m at my desk I’ll just switch it to speakerphone and say nothing. 0.1% of the time I’ll answer just to play along, usually in the role of a blithering idiot. I’d love to get one of those fake tax-collector calls where the government cheerfully accepts Amazon or Apple gift cards.
I almost never answer calls from numbers that are not in my contacts list. The amusement value of messing with the scammer is not worth the risk of my number getting on a “live person” list somewhere in scammerland. If it’s a legitimate business, they will ALWAYS leave a message, and I call them back. I can also google the callback number to confirm that it’s really associated with that business, to avoid the extremely rare case of a scammer skillful enough to successfully pose as a business that I want to deal with.
I ditched my landline several years ago but I get five or six a week on my cell. I haven’t gotten a real person calling me in years. It’s always a recording made to sound like a real person. I assume that the bot eventually connects you to someone if you answer the questions in a certain way but I’ll never find out.
Are you really getting live people right off the bat?
I get one about every seven or eight minutes now, at least in the daytime. About 2/3 start with a robot. The robots are getting better all the time. If you ask the robot if it is a robot it will lie to you and tell you it is not a robot. If you ask the robot if it is a boy robot or a girl robot it is likely to hang up on you. However, I once asked a robot, “Do you wear regular panties or special robot panties?” The robot responded with, “Let me connect you with someone that can give you more information about that.”
Maybe I need to get a life.
That’s insane. Is it your cell or a landline? I think that you interacting with them is getting you on a good list.
It’s a cell phone. For at least a few of them, as soon as I tell them my name is C. J. [Mod note - removed - see OP for name] they immediately terminate the call. I must be on their “bad” list.
I never answer a number I don’t recognize.
The Right Reverend FtG will show these poor lost souls the virtue of not being a con artist. I really got to a guy once. Most hang up. One person insisted on engaging me and claimed she wasn’t lying when I pointed out to her obvious lies. No shame whatsoever.
I tell them my address is “69 Hooker St.” And it is! Or was! It’s a real house address in Boston, but everyone thinks I made it up. Kind of a problem when ordering things. I don’t understand why.
Anyway, it does discourage pests.
The list of characters in the C.J. B*udreaux universe has expanded since my last post in this thread:
- Charles James “C.J.” B*udreaux, proprietor
- Princípe B*udreaux, intellectually disabled wife
- Victoria Princípe B*udreaux, intellectually disabled daughter
- Henrico, nephew in Beaumont, Texas
- Josephine Tuputamadre, aunt in San Pendejo
- Shannon Jones, San Pendejo City Marshall
- “Scruffles”, homeless resident of San Pendejo
- Ruby Walden, store manager of hardware store in San Pendejo
- Leonard Czolgocz, store manager of Family Dollar in Naturita
- Martin Bormann, Senior Customer Service Representative for Publishers Clearinghouse
- Felix “Stingray” Steiner, IT manager
- Damien Echols, full time laborer
- Wilhelm Keitel, accountant
- Hans Krebs, chief of security
- Isiah Smith, seasonal worker and rattlesnake bite victim
- Monica Lopez, fellow venture capitalist from Montego Bay, Jamaica
I live in a complete fantasy world now. My sister says I need help. She’s afraid I will end up in a nursing home and this will be all I can remember.
At least you won’t be alone!
Caller: Hi, this is Peter from The Business Office (they actually say “the business office”) calling about your outstanding credit card debt
Me: Business office from which company?
Caller: [has to stop reading, says:] “The Business Office–that’s the name of the company.”
if I’m feeling frisky I’ll ask them which card they’re calling about (hint, I don’t have any), and what they think the outstanding balance is.
And then there was the time when the hospital was returning a call for the missus to discuss a bill that the insurance company paid–only we haven’t had health insurance for two years. United should not have paid it, but they did, and now it’s meant to be OUR problem. But anyway, the call went:
Caller: Hi, this is Mary from The Business Office, is The Missus available?
And I start slipping into troll mode, “Business office from which company?”
Meanwhile, The Missus is hastening toward me, as she heard my phone ring and was expecting a call from the hospital. I was made to understand that this time it was a legit call. I didn’t feel bad at all about giving “Mary” a hard time–who in the hell introduces themselves by the department they work in, but not the company they are calling on behalf of? Make unprofessional calls, have unprofessional conversations.
It might be a HIPAA requirement
My phone usually says “suspected spam”. I assume they have a list of suspects, so I take the view that if the caller is legitimate, they will try again or leave a message.
This was a few years back. After the initial spiel, I turned on my cheerful voice:
Hi, this is a cell phone. Let’s report you to the FCC. How do you spell your real name?
After a second or so of silence, she hung up.
Way back in the day, I had a telemarketers job for a few months. They trained us to close hard by asking the mark how to spell their last name as you filled in the form.
Sometimes I play someone who has more than a few drinks:
Scammer (with indian accent): Hello. This is John Smith from Microsoft. How are you today?
Me (using drunk sounding voice): I’m DoINg GrEAt!! I juSt DraNK a WHOOOOooooooL BoTTle of VoDKa!!
They usually hang up but if they continue I will interupt them at random moments with “I juSt DraNK a WHOOOOooooooL BoTTle of VoDKa!!” and “hOW aRe yoU toDAy?!”. After about a minute or so of this they will hang up.
At other times I have told them I am “Frank Enstine” or “Harry Katz” or “Justin Case” or “Cal Ephornia” or some other equally silly name. About 75% of the time they will hang up.
I like this. I need to try this next time I get a scam call.