Nuisance Calls

[poliphilo]

Hello Sir, I'm Kevin. I'm calling from the Department of Minor Car Accidents. According to our records someone in your household had a minor car accident recently....

We had two of those yesterday. I string them along by pretending to be worried or uncomprehending or dim. I feel sorry for the poor saps in India or wherever it is who have to make the calls- so I'm unfailingly polite- but I like the idea of wasting their employer's time and money.

My mother was listening in yesterday. i could hear her chuckling.

Comments

[jfs.livejournal.com]

I'd be so tempted to ask them when they were going to make it to the major leagues ...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I might use that- or variations thereon...

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Seems like a fair strategy. ^_^ After all, whilst it’s a bad job, it’s at least a job. (It would, of course, be tremendously amusing to genuinely be able to point them in the direction of good employment =:) And the longer you're able to string them along, the fewer other people they can pester.

So they don't track whom, as an organisation, they've already contacted? Hm. Maybe they hope you've had a minor accident in the meantime? =:) More likely, of course, it's more the spammer mentality - there's little gain in logging contacts when the cost of placing the calls is so low, plus the overhead in maintaining such a contacts database, versus a simple list of numbers.

I wonder what would happen if you replied in another language, beyond anything normally encountered in India.. how's your French? ^_^

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

there's a thought. My French is a bit rickety but possibly good enough for purpose. Another option would be to talk gobbledygook.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I have actually done that and it completely baffles them. My Welsh isn't all that good, but it's good enough to confuse someone from India. They absolutely have no idea what language it is. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Someone told me once that Welsh regiments posted to the North West frontier bumped into a tribe that spoke something so close to Welsh that they could understand one another. I've no idea if this is true or not.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I doubt that it's true, although Sir John Rhys suggests that there are more links between ancient Welsh and Indian myths than you might expect. And there is the intriguing fact that people trying to do a Welsh accent often sound as though they're doing a bad imitation of an Indian accent -- and vice versa. :)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I'm not polite on the rare occasions that this occurs as our phone is ex-directory, we're signed up to TPS and opted out of being on the public directory and voters' roll lists.

Mind you, telling them, the phone is ex-d gets rid of them toute suite!

I like the idea of using another language though.Perhaps I'll go into Italian next time! :o)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Our phone in Oldham is ex-directory etc but my mother's isn't. We get several calls a day. I'm so used to them I no longer get annoyed. I see it as an opportunity for a little role play.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I think what made me a whole lot less forgiving was being up at my MiL's place in Stirling (alone, as himself had a lot on at work and couldn't get time off) after her death doing some house clearing and getting several of these a day which made me realise that they'd been pestering an elderly lady relentlessly and were seemingly still chasing her after her death.

To say I was somewhat rude would be an understatement!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't suppose they have any idea who they're calling- just a list of names and numbers. It must be soul destroying work.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Over here if you say the magic words, "please remove me from your call list", they're legally required to never call again. It mostly works.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I could try that.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

The problem with that is it only works if they're in the same legal jurisdiction as you. And a lot of these firms are based in India or China so there's literally no legal way you can stop them.

[artkouros.livejournal.com]

Our spam calls always come from a US number, so US laws apply, regardless of where the caller is physically located.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

A lot of the ones I get are total scams, so they're hardly going to respect the law. Now I have caller ID, they show up as "international", but I have no idea where they are calling from, mostly India, based on the accent.