Posted on 08/16/2015 3:43:26 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
While no one likes to receive an unwanted sales call, it’s a pretty inevitable experience shared by many. For some unlucky folks, telemarketing calls are frequent and unrelenting, and it’s not uncommon to fall for financial scams.
Sometimes, all we want is to give those callers a taste of their own medicine — and the harmless yet revengeful conversation below just may be a route you’d like to take. It’s a story that’s been circulating ’round the internet and delighting readers to no end. Here, we meet an old lady who’s so fed up with telemarketers that she decides to have a little fun, and show telemarketers just how frustrating these phone calls can be.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, thousands of people lose money to telephone scams every year. Some seem friendly and are skilled in the art of small talk. They may claim to work for a company you trust, or send mail to convince you to call them. I must admit, this is a rather brilliant way to handle those pesky telemarketers. It’s for the greater good of mankind, people! Do you agree?
Ring, ring, ring...
Her: Hello?
Them: Hello Ma’am, I am calling from A Market Research Company*. Would you be willing to take a short study with us?
Her: Absolutely! We here at Evermoon Consulting are always ready to provide opinion based data to our clients!
Them: Um… Ok? Anyway, the survey just takes about 5 minutes and when finished you are entered into a drawing to win a 3 day vacation to Cancun.
Her: That will not be needed. Our usual remuneration per our standard service agreement is all that is required. However please be aware that our lowest billable period is one hour and this call will be billed for an hour of service even if only five minutes is used.
Them: No Ma’am, this will only take five minutes not an hour.
Her: I understand, however your firm will still be billed the minimum hour as per our services agreements. That comes to $225. How would you like to take care of this today? Do you have billing set up with us already? If so I just need the corporate code for your company.
Them: I don’t have that… This only enters you for a trip.
Her: Ok, that’s alright sir. We can set this up on a company credit card for a small fee. Your new total will be $257.98, sir. Go ahead and give me the credit card number.
Them: What credit card?! We aren’t paying $257 for this!
Her: Oh, you are absolutely right sir! I am so sorry! We are talking after 6pm CDT so you are correct that we are in “premium time”. That is correspondingly higher. You total will be $517.54. Thank you for reminding me!
Them: What?! No… No… We can call you after 6pm. The law says we can call until 9pm.
Her: Evermoon Consulting prides itself on meeting our customers needs 24 hours a day sir, but between 6pm and 6am is premium time. I am ready for that credit card number now, Ma’am.
Them: Look, I just have the calls routed to me. I didn’t call you, a computer did.
Her: Oh, I see.
Them: Yeah, so can we just get to the survey?
Her: Yes, but I will have to add our auto-dialer fee to the charges. It’s due to our consultants time being so valuable that we do this to keep them from having their time wasted. With that fee your new total is $759.99. What are the first four digits of the card you would like us to use, please?
Them: Hold on for my supervisor please.
Her: Ok.
Five minutes later... Five minutes later... Flickr Supervisor: Hello Ma’am, I understand there is a problem?
Her: None at all. Your total charges for one hour of premium time consulting with auto-dialer charge and supervisor level respondent fee with credit card processing is $1163.67. Will this be on a MasterCard, Visa, or American Express today?
Supervisor: For what?!
Her: Consulting on your survey of course. What method of payment will you be using today?
*CLICK*
Would you ever be daring enough to try something like this on a telemarketer?
I got tired of a guy calling from India saying he’s from Microsoft and they’ve been alerted that there’s a virus on my computer. (In the end, they want my credit card number to fix the nonexistent problem.)
He asks if I’m at my computer.
Me: Yes. (I’m not.)
Him: Do you see the colored ball on the left of the screen?
Me: Yes.
He tells me to type certain things in different places, and I tell him, “OK. I did it” every time. (I didn’t.)
After about five minutes of playing him like this...
Him: “No what do you see?”
Me: “Hmmm... I see the Virgin Mary.”
Him: “You see the Werjun Mary?”
Me: Yes.
He hangs up.
The companies that call you are scum. The people who call you are making $9.75/hr, making 300-500 calls per shift, trying to feed their babies while staying off welfare. I say “no” politely and hang up.
I can't go into youtube on my home service. But if that's the Homicide scene it's priceless LOL.
I just copied that in to my WORD. LOL
It is the homocide scene. It is THE funniest way to deal with a telemarketer.
We never answer our phone until the call goes thru the answering machine. Unless it’s someone we want to talk to it NEVER gets answered. Usually the PITAs just hang up when they hear the machine message... (After all, it’s how they call us.)
Love it!
Someone stole my shtick.
Ring, ring!
Me: Hello?
Them: Hello, sir, blah, blah, blah...
Me: That's fine, but may I have your credit card number, please?
Them: why do you need my credit card number?
Me: I make my living on the telephone and right now you're taking me away from my livelihood , so if you want to keep talking to me, I'm going to have to bill you and I charge $350 per hour. May I have your credit card number?
Them: CLICK!
I kept getting those rat-bastard callers from India to fix a virus on my computer, they must have called about 20 times.
The last call I ever got from them I told the guy I wouldn’t need their help, he asked me why, so I told him.
“ I took the goddamn computer outside and shot it with my 45”. He actually told me I wasn’t supposed to do that, I answered that it was to late now, the damn thing was dead.
Never got another call from any of those jerks.
Thing is I actually did have a virus and had to completely reformat.
I simply don’t pick up the phone unless I recognize the number on caller ID.
Fortunately, another friend straightened everything out and the credit card was cancelled with the charge removed. My friend now has the real contact info for Apple on a post-it attached to her computer monitor, so if something like this happens again, she can talk to the real tech support.
I acutally pulled a duplicate of this on a telemarketer after hearing the original - it went great!
I use a whistle for really pesty nasty ones.
I give them the phone# for Wrigley Field.
That's my normal habit too but a lot of calls now come in without the complete information, particularly cell phones. I've missed calls from relatives because of that. Very aggravating to pay for caller ID when the phone companies won't even pass the info along.
That same f**king indian rat bastard call center kept calling my house too. One day I picked up the phone, listened for about 30 seconds without saying a word, then with my best Apu Nahasapeemapetilon accent I told them I run Linux, not Windows.
Stupid bastards didn't understand an Apu Nahasapeemapetilon accent. Best part: I wasted about 10 minutes of their time, had fun doing it, and the rat bastards haven't called back.
years ago i once actually had one call back not two minutes later. since the number didn't show i didn't put the phone to my ear lest he he try something similar, all i heard was "tough guy huh?" then he hung up before i could get him again funny thing was he never told anybody else in the boiler room about it and let the next one to call get their own ear full...
shortly after that i got the call blocking thing and now i rarely get solicitation calls
I told the guy from India my dog had been playing on the keyboard and everything was OK now.
You make a very good point. But folks who cold-call fall into two groups. The first group is trying to sell something legitimate. As you noted, they are just trying to make a living. I too am polite to them as I quickly hang up.
But there is a second group. these folks are not selling something legitimate. They are soliciting for fake charities or trying to scam you out of your credit card number. Those folks are filthy criminals.
Very often a recipient of a cold-call with treat the first group as if they belonged to the second group. That's unfortunate, but it's very understandable.
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