Please tell me you followed that up with fart noises.
I’ve been getting lots of calls at my office for car warranties, so often that like @DCnDC, if I don’t recognize the number I start with, “This is Tripler. Unclassified line, call recorded for security. . .go ahead.” I don’t know if it is or not, but it is an unclassified line. Tends to make 'em hang up quick.
One last week caught me by surprise though:
Me:This is Tripler, unclassified line, call recorded for security, go ahead. . .
Him: [in a super-chipper voice] Hi! This is ‘John’, how are you this morning?
Me: [pausing 'cause I don’t know any ‘John’, and I sure-as-f*ck don’t know anyone that happy]
Him: Are you still there?
Me: You have called a Federal agency. Please identify yourself. . .
Him: [silence for a few seconds]
Me: ::hangup::
John didn’t say anything so I hung up. I am still wondering if I was actually hearing a robot mimicking a human voice. . . I understand they’re pretty good about that now.
Tripler
I must have confused ‘John’ off his script.
Latest from my voicemail transcript:
“Hey, it’s Mia with credit national assist and I wanted to try you one last time regarding an online request for getting some financial help (no request ever made) as I was able to get you an approval that I think you’d like so just go ahead and call me back and i’ll give you all the details again my number is…”
I didn’t get that call, just seemed like the only possible answer.
We don’t answer calls where we don’t recognize the number, we let the answering machine pick up. However, from time to time we get messages commonly in a strong East Indian accent claiming to be from Canada Revenue Agency about warrants for our arrest if we don’t call back immediately.
My favorite is the robocall from the angry Chinese lady (in Chinese). Of course I have no idea what she’s saying.
I have never gotten that one. Now I’m curious. Mine are still mostly “local contractors” (with numbers from out-of-state) and recorded calls about my auto warranty.
My daughter got one from the “Sheriff” telling her she missed her summons for jury duty and there was a warrant out for her arrest. She had to pay something ($150 or thereabouts) for bail or he’d have to arrest her and hold her until she saw the judge. Luckily she called me before she did anything. He knew her address, where she worked, etc. It was quite a scheme for just $150.
All unknown calls (and halfthe calls from people we know!) go straight to voicemail. Of the small percentage that leave messages, they are from
’
The IRS and I am going to jail
We’d like to buy your house
You car warranty is expiring
Your computer is screwing up the entire internet
Pay off your student loans
Every once in a while we get a legitimate wrong number, which breaks the monotony.
I got a call from “Florida” asking if this was “John”, and since I guessed he was a scammer and so I said yes I was. He then proceeded to talk about scheduling new windows for my house. But he was so hard to understand I still wasn’t sure he was a legitimate contractor or a scammer. When he said where he was in Orlando, I suddenly got a call “on the other line” and hung up. I hope the actual guy in Florida eventually gets his windows!
Only once have I gotten the IRS call. All the rest are fairly evenly split between vehicle warranty and credit card services. And those aren’t very often at all. Maybe once week.
Not directly related to scam calls, but this reminds me of an incident from my own life from a few years ago. When I bought my phone contract, I was assigned a number that I guess had belonged to “Dave” before he stopped paying the bill or whatever. I got frequent text messages and the odd phone call for him. One phone call was an automated one from Dish Network telling me about when the technician was going to arrive to install some equipment. Wanting to do the right thing, I called Dish to explain this mistake – it took half an hour and multiple transfers – but eventually someone somewhere got the message that they needed another method of contacting Dave about his installation.
“Dave’s not here.”
“No, man. I’m Dave, man. D-A-V-E. Will you open up the goddamed door?”
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Never cross the memes!
Daisy…D a i s y…
I don’t get many scam calls, which is a good thing since I do answer calls from unknown numbers (the vast majority of which are real calls from people who want to talk to me about legit work stuff).
I used to get the car warranty extension calls, which I always answered with some variation on, “Which car? I have three - is it the Porsche, the BMW, or the Volvo?” causing immediate hang-ups.
The scam call that intrigues me only comes about once every six months or so. I don’t know the nature of the scam. It starts with a mellifluous, American-accented voice saying, “Is [my real life last name, which could be a masculine first name if you squint and look at it sideways] there?”
One time I affected the voice of a demented old woman and screeched, with a hick accent, “Cairo up and died six months ago, how dare you call an old lady in the middle of the night and upset me with that question?”
Somewhat surprisingly, the voice answered, in a polite tone, “Sorry, we will remove your number from our records.”
I still get the calls though. The problem is they always come in at 2 or 3 in the morning and I don’t feel like doing anything but going back to sleep. If I’m ever not feeling groggy, I do have a few answers I plan to give, such as “Which one, Cairo Sr. or Jr.?” or “You’re a little early, Cairo won’t be released from prison until next week, can I take a message?” or “Hell no, I kicked that cheatin’ scoundrel to the curb last week, call him at that slut he calls his girlfriend’s house.”
Given that I got a semi-reasonable answer the first time I responded to the question, I am curious to see what the caller would say in response to any of the above. I hope that one of these days they’ll call again when I feel awake enough to find out.
I have this same problem, now six years after getting this phone number. “Joe/Joseph/Jose” held this number before me, and has run afoul of a lot of his creditors and lawyers. At first it was multiple calls a week, then after a year, it tapered down to one a week, now after six years it’s once a month or two.
At first, I tried calling back and explaining, but that didn’t help any. I reckoned these ‘legal/credit vultures’ were just trading my number around since a live human (me) answered. I quit answering unknown numbers after awhile, and the ‘Joe calls’ tapered off. But then the auto scam numbers ramped up.
Periodically I get a ‘Joe’ call. That’s when I use my ‘unclassified line/call recorded’ spiel.
Tripler
Not Joe.
Just got another call that really is the worst type of scammer. The one that never connects to a person, and never plays a recording. It’s just dead air. Most of the spam scam calls I get are this way.
Now it’s one thing to call people and scam them out of their money, but what’s the point of calling and NOT trying to scam people out of their money? You can’t take my money if you won’t even try! Do I have to do ALL the work?
eta: I guess that means my complete and correct by-the-numbers percentage answer to the OP is “I don’t know”, because they never say anything.
The scam there is when someone answers the call, the caller-bot has now identified that number as connected to a live person, making the phone number that much more valuable to sell to some other scammer.