Digital Art Zone

Sockratease - 17 October 2012 03:56 PM

I had a call trying to sell me a newspaper subscription - I told them I can’t read. 

Same call a week later - I put on my best “almost crying” voice and whined “Is this some kind of cruel joke??  Don’t you know I’m blind???”

They never called back.

Had another from a phone company claiming better rates - I said “I don’t have a telephone.”

Long silence - then they hung up without another word.

Loved these, especially “I don’t have a telephone.”

JHoagland I’m pretty sure it’s a scam and if someone is trying to scam you, than as far as I’m concerned whatever they get in return is what they deserve.
Most likely they are hoping to get in touch some naive elderly person whom they can then rob… they are not human beings if that is their intent and whatever minor audio inconvenience you may cause them is nothing in relation to what they deserve.
I got some calls similar to yours about two years ago…  I looked it up and I was not the only person receiving them… it was a scam back then and probably is a version of it still today… why would ANYONE need your credit card information to answer who they are and what the call is about… its BS and they are trying to scam you.
I can not truly express how much ill will I bear towards these scam artists, they prey on trusting and naive people and those (usually) are decent good people… These lowlifes rank below the Ebola virus on my list of things to have consideration for.
One thing you can try-  keeping them on the phone for a moment or two and then informing them you are running a trace on their number and will provide it to the authorities… if they hang up right away you’ll have confirmed it is not a legit call. That worked once on some chump who claimed they were a collection agency (another BIG scam lately).

Although I do not own a “Telezapper” ( a misleading name if it does not actually ZAP the idiot calling you), I too am on a “no call” list which apparently now means NOTHING… yes, I know you have to periodically reregister, which I have done (why I should have to reregister is BS in my opinion… I NEVER want ANY sales calls, I should only have to UNregister if I decide I’m SO stupid I want to get scam mortgage refinancing sales calls all day long)....  But yeah, at this point it means SO MUCH nothing that I now have political groups calling me trying to convince me they are the only true salvation of mankind and the other guy is a puppy raping satan lover…. so yeah, I get them all day long and as far as I’m concerned anyone calling me is fair game for whatever mischief I concoct… mostly I say “wait a second” and place the phone somewhere loud.
Sometimes I’ll do my own interpretation of Andy Kaufman’s “Latka” character from Taxi… Other times I pretend I’m a deaf old man… sometimes I’ll say “what the hell is that…” and drop the phone into this big coffee can with small bolts in it and shake it around while making snarling wolf mauling sounds while also screaming “WEREWOLF!!”... usually the phone hangs up after a few seconds because the battery is loose (I tend to throw it at stuff a lot)... The other day I told the lady from the Pew Research Center that I couldn’t help her because I my house was surrounded by zombies and I was sort of busy at the moment, then after hanging up on her, I realized that if I ever was going to talk to a pollster, Pew Research would probably be the only one I would (oh well).
Realistically I get far fewer humans calling me… (actually I’m not sure if they are human, but thats another matter), 90% of the sales calls I get seem to come from a nationwide mortgage refinancing scam company that often calls up to 4 or 5 times a day from different numbers in different states (including cell phone numbers too), its alway the same message:  “...termined that you are eligible for a streamline refinance with rates as low as three point two five percent. This is a no closing cost loan with no appraisal or income requirement and is backed by the federal housing authority. You will also be eligible for a cash rebate for up to three thousand dollars. Press one to find out more or three to opt out.”...  ( get it so often I wrote it down )
I want to press 6 and give the bastard running the calls, terminal explosive diarrhea.  Is there a device for that? I’ll buy it. I’ll buy two, just in case the first one breaks. 
If you take a job where all day long you annoy people, then you deserve to be annoyed back (sorry but I have little sympathy in that regard), on the other hand, if your “job” is trying to rob and defraud people, then you should be thrown in a windowless dungeon with giant hungry rats.  Unfortunately few of these lowlifes ever get prosecuted.
Good luck and sorry if this was mostly a anti-telemarketer rant.

Feel free to rant if it helps.
But I disagree with violently going after these people. How many of them are just trying to make ends meet and the only job they could find was a semi-legal call center where they’re told to hang up if anyone asks too many questions? That’s I think we should tell these people that we’ll be reporting them and they’ll lose their jobs. I think the people running these companies are scammers, but should we take our anger at the front-line people?
Or am I being too nice?

trill - 17 October 2012 12:13 PM

If these people will not tell you the company they are working for until after you give then CC info, then I would be 99% sure it is a phishing scam. I would report it not only to FTC, but the FBI and in your case the State of Florida DOJ.

I’m sure they know this is an idle threat as long as they don’t give their information. After all, how is the FBI going to go after them if they don’t know who to go after?

I like the other people’s ideas of just putting the phone down until they get the idea that they’re wasting their time calling me. However, this doesn’t stop them from scamming other people.

Sockratease - 17 October 2012 03:56 PM

I had a call trying to sell me a newspaper subscription - I told them I can’t read. 

Same call a week later - I put on my best “almost crying” voice and whined “Is this some kind of cruel joke??  Don’t you know I’m blind???”

They never called back.

Had another from a phone company claiming better rates - I said “I don’t have a telephone.”

Long silence - then they hung up without another word.

Some more ammunition. 

Got any more I can add?

Now once, a siding salesman called. I wasn’t on a cellphone where he’d be using up my minutes. He started asking questions about would I like my house to be one color or another. “Oh, that might be nice.” I spent more than a few minutes agreeing with him that it would really be nice. Finally, he went for the close. “May I have a salesman call on you?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Silence from the other end. I had him now!

“May I ask why not?” he finally got out.

“I live in a brick house.”

he laughed, “I guess I never asked that, did I!”

Oh, boy, some of you have really made me laugh…:lol:

One of the frustrating things is that there are certain groups that are exempt in the US from the “Do Not Call Registry”, including not-for profit organizations, people doing surveys, and political organizations.  Those alone are a LOT of groups that are still allowed to call you.

JHoagland - 17 October 2012 04:28 PM

Feel free to rant if it helps.
But I disagree with violently going after these people. How many of them are just trying to make ends meet and the only job they could find was a semi-legal call center where they’re told to hang up if anyone asks too many questions? That’s I think we should tell these people that we’ll be reporting them and they’ll lose their jobs. I think the people running these companies are scammers, but should we take our anger at the front-line people?
Or am I being too nice?

I did not want to encourage any violent action… granted I do want the ability to instantly give the scammers explosive diarrhea, but thats just me…
I’m not mean to innocent people… there are different levels…

Charities: I’m nice to them.

Small businesses: generally nice, except for the guy who kept calling me “vic” and trying to convince me I had purchased fuel oil from them… (I have natural gas heat).

Political: Can kindly rot in hell… I’m generally not nice, because if anyone should respect the do not call list, it should be the people who make the laws… (unless the law does not apply to them… ?)

General “real” businesses (newspapers subscriptions, phone and cable companies etc…): The callers are just trying to make a living, I understand… 80% of the time I’m ambivalent, unless they are unprofessional, annoying or sound dead… I hate it when the dead call me and when I can’t understand half of what the mumbly dead guy is saying, I tend to drop the phone in the coffee can or place it on the compressor (I really don’t know why my phone still works… it’s a Panasonic KX-TGA101S if you want a phone to abuse). 

Scammers: I’m very nasty and threatening.

In general, people who work for companies that are pulling scams KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING… Mmmmmmaybe 2-5% of the people who work in that sort of business are clueless as to the nature of their calls… the rest, either outright know or have some idea that it’s a scam… The way these businesses are run you would pretty much have to be a complete idiot to not know what you are doing, especially when they are trained to recognize certain kinds of “marks” or taught how to pump people for personal information. They are minor criminals, but they are breaking the law none the less… even if they are not running the scam, they are perpetuating it… I can not and will not be nice to a person like that… if you think the company you work for is defrauding people,  then morally it is the same as working for a burglary ring or auto theft gang… it doesn’t matter if you are only washing the stolen cars- you know they are stolen and you don’t have a problem with that as long as you are making money from the perpetrators… why then should I respect you or show you the smallest bit of consideration… especially when most of the victims of these scams are the elderly or poor? If then the argument is “well, what if they really need the job?”, then they of all people should know what it is like to be taken advantage of, to be down on your luck or desperate and should not wish to take advantage of of others who can ill afford it.
Someone being rude or mean to them on the phone should be the least of their concerns.

No, you are not being too nice… you are just being nice, trying to see things from the other guys point of view. You are good person.

Once again, I’m not advocating… I’m just explaining my view on this.

Good luck.

I start asking personal questions…

What are you wearing?
What color are your eyes, you sound like you have very sexy eyes…

Never got to a third question, lol

being an aussie we get the telecalls as well.. usually from people from India..

Indians love cricket no matter what part of India they are from it’s like part of their religion. I love cricket as well so I just talk cricket to them and they can’t resist. The longest conversation so far was 40 minutes when they finally had to hang up on me.

So I suggest talk whatever the favourite sport is for your country. If you have the time to do it.

if the telemarketer isn’t an Indian then I do a Chinese voice and ask for their order and delivery address.. they don’t last long at all.

How many of them are just trying to make ends meet and the only job they could find was a semi-legal call center where they’re told to hang up if anyone asks too many questions? That’s I think we should tell these people that we’ll be reporting them and they’ll lose their jobs. I think the people running these companies are scammers, but should we take our anger at the front-line people?

Since I have actually worked “customer service” at a call center (incoming thank god but we handled one account that had been screwing people all over the country with a free boat scam)  I just tell them I am not interested and that I need to hang up. I don’t try and “take it out on them” because frankly the odds of them actually being someone in charge, or making more than minimum wage are slim to none. I showed up to an interview once and it was clearly a scam. They spent a fair bit of time going over how long the company had been in business and what a wonderful service they were doing for the people they called. I didn’t stay because the whole thing smelled to me, but I am sure people who were more desperate for a job or more innocent didn’t leave.

wendy♥catz - 17 October 2012 01:46 PM

act stupid and just keep repeating everything they say.

But Wendy that’s my only link to the outside world LOL!

I just answer the phone (when it’s a number i don’t recognise) with Norfolk Police Fraud Squad - soon gets rid of the scammers.

I’m mostly immune to telemarketers, since I don’t have a landline and my cell phone is usually off.  However, there’s one line I’ve always wanted to try:

“Thank you for calling Murgatroyd Marketing Consultants.  If you’ll give me your company’s name and billing address, we can get started right away.”

I have caller ID. If I don’t recognize the call, or the ID is blocked, I don’t pick up. Telemarketers don’t leave voice mail. Also useful because I live in a college town. Lots of wrong numbers.