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**Mark Black** · 07-02-2015, 07:07 PM

Ouch - I feel your pain.

That's especially tough when it's a business phone you are used to having to answer.

We get those calls on our home land-line too, but just let the answering machine do its thing and only pick up when it's actually someone we want to speak with. We get a lot of messages with the beginning cut off, since the robo-calls don't seem to recognize that someone is talking (outgoing message).

**The Dude** · 07-02-2015, 07:08 PM

Oh, I hate those bastards. Nothing more than audio spam. Every once in a while, just for my own satisfaction, I like to play a little game with them and see how long I can make them sit on the phone. They call and ask for "the owner" or whatever. I ask them to hold and set the phone down and go back to work. In a few minutes, I pick it up and say, "He'll be right with you" and then set the phone down again. I might do this several times just to piss them off, and I can still get some work done in between.

I had a guy call me once about "my yearly donation" for some BS charity. I said "Oh, great! I was waiting for your call. How much am I getting this year?" He tried to explain that he was asking for money and not giving it out. I kept pretending I didn't understand and asked him when the check was being sent, etc. He finally hung up.

Another favorite of mine is to just start pushing buttons. A lot of those people are wearing headsets and it's quite annoying when you start getting blasted with dialing tones.

**nsubulysses** · 07-02-2015, 07:18 PM

I am basically a secretary for a few hours per day and I get calls like this constantly, and they are exactly the same. Google a couple times per day, always from a new location. Toledo OH is the new one lately but they usually call from Vegas or Atlanta, Georgia in recent times. Then as Enzo said there's the, Hello, I need to speak to person in charge of gas bill or electric bill. Yep. I say the same thing, so you work for people's gas?? Uhhh, no, but we can offer better rates an an independent supplier. ok we don't need any help bye

We constantly get called by robocalls but also roofing people always asking if we need our roof refinished. At least they're real, and don't call back every day when you say no.

I will have to try the hitting buttons thing. that sounds great

My personal least favorite is when they ask for the business owner. I am basically a gatekeeper in this scenario, screening the calls. Well, our owner had knee surgery and was out for 3 months. When they call I say he's not here can I take a message? They don't like that, because they know you'll never call back, so they usually just hang up on me when I ask and call again in a couple days.

These calls are literally 75% of the reason I am hired as a part timer at this friends family biz. We make butcher block counters and tables and island tops and what not, and my friend and his dad were so sick of being interrupted constantly to answer the phone while in the middle of refinishing a table or doing a sink cutout, that they hired me.

**Enzo** · 07-02-2015, 08:27 PM

Cheeses-Q-ryst. After I posted that, I stepped out my front door for some fresh air, it's a nice day out. The phone rings, so I trot back in. it is so and so from some "business solutions" wanting to discuss small business loans. I said I can save him some time, i won't be needing that. Oh but you know eventually you will need some capital, so why not take JUST a few minutes to answer some questions, there is no obligation, blah blah. Hey! The business is closed, and i am retired, I don't need it. click...

Some days I am just in the mood... Dun and Bradstreet call. Now they are known as a company that rates the credit worthiness of other companies, but they are also in the business data game. So they call and want to "update their files". I may not be the smartest guy, but I ain't stupid. They just want to gather data to sell to marketers. So I make stuff up. How many employees? Oh we have about 1500 at the two plants. And annual sales? We don't divulge that. Well under a million or over? Oh over for sure. Blah blah. Plus one bit of code, they always want to know who the offic manager is, and who the general manager is. ANy time I am asked that, I always tel them Mike Ferguson. Nothing special about the name other than i always use it. So the only people who ever call and ask for Mike are people who got their information from one of these marketing data places. SO to us, Mike Ferguson is code for: these people have no idea who we are and are not customers. Feel free to fuck with them.

meanwhwile, once I told them we had 1500 employees, I started getting things in the mail. You know what a corporate gift catalog is? it is general merchandise, like a Sears catalog or something, or maybe an upscale Fingerhut, but it is all gifts you can buy for your employees. Desk sets, neckties, wall clocks, shoe shiners, etc. You can order some gewgaw for your managers at Xmsa maybe. So I started getting these catalogs. I'd get them in threes. One to the general manager, one to the president, and one to the head of HR. What fun. On the other hand I did start to get more calls from people wanting to sell health insurance plans.

Mike has a history in my family. I would occasionally call my sister. If she was out, I'd leave a phone message. It was always something like "This is Mike Ferguson down at Commonwealth Paving, and we'll be out there right at 7AM tomorrow to do that driveway for you, so make sure to leave your cars on the street tonight." Of course Sis knows it's me. But now and then her husband, Ron would get the message. She'd come home from work, and his car would be on the street, and she'd say "Honey, why is your car on th street?" Oh the paving company is going to be here in the morning, they called. Uh huh. Did the guy's name happen to be Ferguson, by any chance?

other times, Mike would be from the Doylestown Department of Public Works letting them know the sewers were being replaced and their driveway would not be accessible, so park on the street... Or Mike was from the landscapers and they would be replacing the lawn... Mike gets around.

My other sister has a friend., The friend went on vacation for a week or two. Sis thought it would be funny to have her come home and a bunch of strange phone messages would be waiting. Say no more, says I. SO we had our grown son call the number and say "WE HAD THE BABY!!! I gotta go, talk to you later!" The wife called claiming to be the woman's Pampered Chef rep, and had a lot of details about the party that was coming up. And I called several times as Phillip, from Blockbuster Video. Phillip wanted her to please return the Adam Sandler movies she had rented. They had other customers wanting them. Phillip called several times. I went as far as to look up the Blockbuster Video in her town, so I even included teh phone number in my message. Sneaky. Um, this is Phillip from Blockbuster Video, over on Franklin, and we still need those Adam Sandler movies returned. You can hang onto teh Andrew Dice Clay movie, but we need the others. (I modeled Phillip on the bald kid in High Fidelity, but he talks like John Malkovich, one of my better fleshed out characters actually)

So the poor woman gets home, and gets all these massages. never occurs to her that GEE there are a lot of odd messages here. She called everyone she knew trying to figure out who had a baby. Turns out she actually DID have a Pampered Chef rep, but of course there was no party planned and the rep had no idea what she was talking about. And Blockbuster, tee hee, she called them, upset that they had bugged her aboout movies she didn't have. They told her they had no one named Phillip, nor any record of ever renting any movies to her. She never caught on. Then a couple months later, the woman was visiting my sister. Woman up from North Caroline to sis in Washington DC. Sis said, why don't I call my sister's house when the woman gets there and pretend to be Phillip. So I did. I call sis, and hear her say to the woman, Gee, it's for YOU. And hands over the phone. The lady starts to berate Phillip, wondering why he kept calling, and what is your FULL name she asks. At one point I was losing it, and said "I'm sorry, maam, I'm falling out of character. But why are you calling me? I am dedicated to my job. It never dawned on her thatPhillip was calling her at someone else's house hundreds of miles away, and how would he know she was there and what the phone number was. The lady wasn't thinking it through.

She was starting to get mad, well mo starting to it, she was there. I eventually talked her into asking my sis what was up. I said perhaps you should talk to the lady of the house, adn she said "I AM the lady of the house." No, I mean the lady of the house you are at.

hey it was my sister's idea, I was just following orders.

She eventually got over it, they are still close friends, but she was steamed. Sis reports that they never talk about it, it is a sore spot.

The woman later sent me a post card from hawaii or some place, with no name or return address, trying to be mysterious, but she addressed it to a name only my family calls me, so I knew it was her. Can't kid kidder.

Oh...wait... those phone assholes that call me? My god, I guess I am one of them.

**Jazz P Bass** · 07-02-2015, 11:55 PM

On a different tack, I had a gentleman call & the answering machine picked up.

" Can you fix my amplifier?"
He did not leave a return number.

So he calls back the next day.
Got the machine again.
He proceeds to berate me for putting him on hold again.

**J M Fahey** · 07-03-2015, 01:11 AM

Loved the playing with the tonepad bit.
Yes, they do wear headphones, simply because they are sitting in some damp dungeon ... or its equivalent, shoulder to shoulder in their small plywood coffins , so you can fit more in a room.

Say 15 or 16 , in a "U" along 3 walls or 3 rows of 5 , take your pick, in a bedroom sized space ... or 1 person per square meter (square yard for you Americans

)

Lots of friend's kids work there, it's either that or some Mc D type job for those entering the workplace, hardly any other option.

Since speaking fluent English is common here in Buenos Aires, many of them are remote service call operators for large companies, think HP or Direct TV ; one of them was very excited because Arnold Schwarzenegger himself called him about some Cable TV problem, go figure.

The point is that those tireless callers are one face of the spiraling down Economy, where this kind of crap jobs is all there is.

And showing that companies must be desperate for sales/profits to turn to this incredibly inefficient way of doing Business.

Because one such caller to begin with fails miserably, I doubt they do 1% successful calls, if that much, (might be way way less), and even if they get an interested listener, they are slow.
They waste at least one minute per *unanswered* call, maybe 3 to 5 minutes wasted by somebody who talks a little and finally says no or straight hangs up, how long are they allowed to keep talking to somebody who does not hang up straight up but is undecided?

Or one who listens, asks, argues, but finally buys nothing?

Personally I fight back (if I have time) by faking interest and getting appointments, with fake meeting points, often at most inconvenient times (as in: if they are available from 9 to 5, I say: pity, I'm interested and do have the money, but I only leave work at 6, could your representative arrange something at that time?" ), I also give them local Police Station addresses, or from shops where they will ask for non existing people and where they will get kicked out.

Calling does not cost them much but a failed "real" appointment is very wasteful, up to an hour for a real person who to boot has to travel there.

And in the few cases they already know my real address because theyn pulled it straight from the phonebook, I simply hang up.

I have received VERY angry call backs accusing me of being an a-hole incapable of keeping an appointment, sometimes after 3/4 unsuccesful tries where I unfortunately "arrived late".
Glorious.

People offering cars "I won" and expecting me at some car shop for hours, many times, have eventually called menacing to sue me or tell the Police about me.
Really???

I also write back to Nigerian scammers and beautiful Russian/Ukrainian ladies seeking for love.

My spam folders burst , specially because I publish my EMail all over the place, in Facebook,Forums, etc.

No big deal, when I open the folder I start by marking everything as "delete", then quickly scan the headers to see which one (1%) deserves further attention, all others get shredded.

Also having 4 or 5 different accounts: one for Argentine customers, one for International, one for Family and 3 or 4 disposable ones for those places which are "free" but demand "a valid email account for confirmation" ... which I gladly supply .... I expect NO real mail there.

Would love to have a couple disposable phone numbers for that

In a way I do, here SIM cards can be bought in the street for 1 U$, preactivated , you just load U$15 and can use them for a Month, and are rechargeable after that.

I normally use them to sell stuff on our local EBay (Mercado Libre or ML) where I don't want people to link them to me, usually unpicked repairs which would sit unmolested for ages (in my shop) but which customers instantly recognize and want back when they see them on ML offered by me ... and they remain in my sales history forever ("hey, Juan, you S.O.B !!!!! you sold my amp *just* when I was about to pick it" (2 years later), can't use my phone because ML recognizes it's an already registered one, so "blind" SIM cards are a Godsend for a fake seller.
Of course I can't use Mercado Pago (our PayPal) because there they need the real ID but I always have some way or another to cash sales.

**Enzo** · 07-03-2015, 02:27 AM

Oh they don't dial any phones, an autodialer rings up numbers, and any that connect are then transferred to an open operator. That is why when you pick up the phone and say hello, there is a moment before someone comes on the line. Only the computer wastes time dialing.

**nsubulysses** · 07-03-2015, 03:03 AM

Yes, if you answer and there is no response within 3 seconds hang up immediately or you will have to talk with someone about something that's ultimately pointless.

**Justin Thomas** · 07-03-2015, 03:38 AM

About that 3-second delay...

I used to live with an older woman who needed a lot of help around the house; she had a chronic degenerative lung disease, and was in & out of doctors's offices a lot. We'd also get a lot of solicitation & robo calls, and she said I could feel free to have some fun if I wanted. So one say while she was out, I took a call. When I said hello, there was a 3second pause before they asked for my friend, so I went into "salesperson response" mode. I replied like she always did: "this is she..." The young lady on the other end said there seemed to be something wrong with my voice, and was I breathing okay? I replied "I had a sex change operation." The young lady said, Oh, I had no idea you were considering such a dramatic procedure, and I hope all is well. Anyway, this is Nurse Whoever from Dr. Whoever's office, confirming your appointment next Tuesday?" Oh, shit, it was her pulmonologist's office! Some explaining got the matter cleared up, and they called back later and asked my friend how her trans-ge der surgery had gone.

We all got a laugh, but I did let the nurse know to not delay in identifying herself, so people wouldn't assume she's a robo-caller...

On a more positive note, I put myself on the federal do-not)call list a few years back & it seems to work. Although the American Red Cross & US Army have gotten through...

Justin

**Enzo** · 07-03-2015, 04:52 AM

The do not call list works for personal phones. Business phones are excluded from the list. believe me I tried.

**Tom Phillips** · 07-03-2015, 05:31 AM

Originally posted by Enzo View Post

The do not call list works for personal phones...

From my experience it doesn't work very well at all. There is no enforcement and the callers know it. I have started getting 2 to 3 calls a day even though I am on the DNC list. the problem has been escalating over the last couple of years. I am also getting cell phone robo calls. There is an internet sight to file reports of illegal calls but that seems to just be another waste of time. Just another case of of a government agency that does not do their job.

g1 · 07-03-2015, 06:05 AM

DNC lists are impossible to enforce if the call is international.
Why the phone companies allow this is beyond me. We pay for a service and we have to put up with this? Aside from the land line issues, there are stupid cel phone text ads also. I'm on a pre-paid cel plan, I have to use up minutes to get spam calls and texts? Ridiculous.

**DrGonz78** · 07-03-2015, 06:53 AM

Yeah I have had some fun with those telemarketer phone calls. Now with cell phones I don't get them at all. I do get miss dialled phone calls. One time there was a message from United Airlines about my flight being delayed. Poor bastards never got the message! Also more recently there was the phone call message from some Doctor's office to remind someone about an appointment for tomorrow.

Years ago working the front desk at a hotel I got a call from Arnold Schwarzenegger! "Who is your DADDY? And what does he DO?" Obviously those are sound board crank calls, but it was hilarious.

g1 · 07-03-2015, 06:19 PM

Originally posted by DrGonz78 View Post

Years ago working the front desk at a hotel I got a call from Arnold Schwarzenegger! "Who is your DADDY? And what does he DO?" Obviously those are sound board crank calls, but it was hilarious.

I remember that, thought that was from a jerky boys tape, but apparently not. Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBnJO7NSRrs

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