I have Caller ID and whenI answered the phone just now, I got an automated (woman’s) Operator, telling me I had a call and if I wanted to hear it, to press 1.
So I did. I now hear a whiny…
Caller: “And tell her to return DeLay’s money.”
Operator: “If you want to know who the caller is, Press 1.”
I did.
Caller: “8214.”
That is it.
This is the second time I received this type of call. Is this one part of a neocon phone campaign?
What is the friggin’ point of it?
It sounds like you may be trapped in a David Lynch movie.
Someone asked a similar question about a similarly weird call recently. It’s most likely a soundboard prank: People cut lines from movies and save them as sound files, then they put several of those sound files together to form a call.
Quit hanging up on me!!!
Could you explain “soundboard prank” more thoroughly? Why lines from movies? How do they choose whom to call? Why the operator, and the indentification number? From where do they do this? What makes this a prank? (Why is it funny?) And what movie has the line "And tell her to return Delay’s money?
I got a weird call a little while ago; I picked up the phone, only to hear…a phone ring, like as if I’d dialed THEM. But I hadn’t. So I hung up.
Do any of you also get the “If you want to hear this call Press 1” treatment?
Like I said I received a similarly weird phone call several months ago. Pressed 1, etc. and the message was as inane as this one. But my wife reminded me that I wondered if this were a phone scam with hidden charges like the old 900 calls,
So, I dialed up Southern Bell and was assured there’s no scam involved, which turned out to be true and I never got any spurious bills.
I wonder if I’ll pass on the Press 1 calls from now on. Something tells me I should.
The recent thread I was speaking of was this. Soundboards are those sound file collections that are on the internet, and combined with voice over IP technology, this will make it rather easy to start of a call like this.
Is your member of congress a female Republican? Your caller may have been trying to generate a flurry of letters to her.
Keeping in mind that I’m in GQ, I’ll stick to the facts. Fundraising in the GOP has gotten more centralized in recent years. A lot of the campaign money a candidate gets comes from nationwide PACs such as Mr. DeLay’s Americans for a Republican Majority (ARMPAC.) Now that DeLay and some other ARMPAC figures have been indicted for alleged campaign finance law violations, the opposition is taking the opportunity to embarass other Republicans who got money from Mr. DeLay’s PAC.
The fact that you were unable to get the whole message seems to mean the opposition’s phone technology is not up to snuff.
My Congressman is renowned Bushette, Nancy Johnson. The other is Democrat by label, but a neocon by action - Senator Lieberman. Neither would pull that stuff.
Nancy Johnson took $10,020 from Tom DeLay’s ARMPAC.
There are “give back the money” campaigns in several states.
A slight correction to my previous post…
Mr. DeLay’s indictment involves his Texans for a Republican Majority (TRIMPAC), not ARMPAC.
The Texas campaign finance law is very loose, but it does forbid applying corporate money directly to the campaign of a candidate for state office. Prosecutor Ronnie Earle says TRIMPAC sent $190,000 of corporate contributions to the Republican National Committee. The RNC then sent $190,000 to Republican candidates for the Texas legislature. Prosecutor Earle calls that money laundering for the purpose of evading the law. He names Mr. DeLay as a conspiritor in the scheme.