Getting Rid Of A Telemarketer FOREVER!

[fyrewall]

I get all sorts of unfortunate robo calls including spoofed calls - about 10 - 12 per week. I have "NOMOROBO" as a benefit from my telephone/internet provider. My phone rings 1 time but my provider traps the number allowing me to check up on it. Now, with the oncoming 2020 election I expect more telephone calls. Possibly, I might hear how sending Iran a plane load of money was a really cool move to promote peace and security in the Persian Gulf. In any event, "NOMOROBO" blocks all political robo calls. "Survey" calls are allowed by the "do not call list" but "NOMOROBO" blocks them, not caring about content. I don't expect NSA to help keep robo callers away, there are billions of robo calls and NSA has more important work to accomplish than surveilling calls made by cheap crooks.

My policy is to never engage the spoofers, telemarketers, in any conversion. Many of them are extremely intelligent and are very computer or IT savvy , possibly at one time they have worked for MS, Google, or whatever. Many of them have 3rd world background that has included a hand to mouth existence and regard America as the land of the Golden Goose and will cheerfully rip you off for what ever they can get. I good example is this elderly woman we know, a veteran who we check on several times each week. She recently got ripped off for $2,400. The caller claimed her subscription to "semantic tech" (sophisticated encryption based security software) expired and $2,400 was needed to renew. The guy had a heavy foreign accent. He demanded a check which was sent. Later the check was cashed and after cashing the check a second call was made claiming the charge was excessive and the fee was to be reduced to $1,800 but a second check was to be mailed (aggressive?). Fortunately, the local senior center intervened when the veteran lady attempted get some copy of the transaction. Her county sheriff was contacted. The bad guy(s) were threatened with prosecution and the money restored. After all that the bad guy(s) resumed calling and offering the nice veteran lady more "deals."

All of the above has nothing to do with "accurate shooting" but members have been ripped off but not by telephone calls. Chatting with them about stuff like 1974 Pinto's might be considered "on the job training" to learn more of the American vernacular.

 

[NorCalMikie]

Answering machine: Please leave a message after the tone. CLICK!!
Cell phone? Havn't turned it on for over 6 months. I have a camera if I want to take pictures.

 

[Bbear]

I loved this one!

I have a friend that writes for a small NE Texas newspaper. He often writes about the 'Phone Creatures' that calls him from time to time. He really enjoys putting it over on them. Here's an example:

CREATURES & CELLULITE


I was asked when I was goin’ to write another article about phone creatures. Well, to tell you the truth, most of the phone creature calls I’ve been gettin’ here lately have been what they call Robo Calls and I can’t talk to them unless I call ‘em back. So, I’m gonna make you read an old one that got me in trouble with my wife. I hope you enjoy it as much as my wife didn’t.

Guess what! Yep, you guessed it. I got another call from a phone creature the other day. I’m gettin’ fewer and fewer of them here lately, because my wife put us on one of those do not call lists. No, it wasn’t my idea. She’s the one who doesn’t like to talk to them, not me. Heck, I’m findin’ it harder and harder to find anybody that will talk to me. For some reason they think that I’m some kind of reporter for the paper or something. Well, let me inform you right now, I am not a reporter. If you don’t believe me, call the paper. They’ll tell you. Reporters are trained to do their craft. Nobody ever trained me to do this stuff, as you can probably tell. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the phone creature.

Phone creatures, for you out there who haven’t been readin’ this junk I write, are what I call those pesky phone solicitors. I like to mess with them, if you know what I mean. Anywho, I got a call the other day.

“Yellow,” I said as I answered the phone. I didn’t hear anything on the other end. “Yellow!” I said louder, and then I heard that faint click that tells you it’s a phone creature.

“Mr. Mitchum? Hi, this is Stacy Lyndon, and I am calling to let you know that you have been selected as our winner for a new DVD player.”

“A what?” I asked.

“A DVD player,” she repeated.

“How do you spell that?” I asked.

“Uh, how do you spell DVD?” she asked back.

“I asked you first,” I said.

“Well..uh..It’s spelled D-V-D.”

“Oh, just like it sounds, huh?”

“Uh, yes Sir.”

“How’d I win it?” I asked.

“Well, first you would have to sign on with our satellite dish service, and let us install you a new satellite dish.”

“Is that one of those things that gets pictures from outer space?”

“Well, sort of.”

“It’s for your TV, ain’t it?”

“Yes Sir.”

“Well then, you’re gonna have to talk to my wife, ‘cause she’s the only one who watches TV around here.”

“I see. Is she in?”

“Naw,” I said. “She’s in the hospital.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s nothing serious, I hope.”

“Well, she electrocuted herself.”

“Oh my!”

“Yeah, it all started out with her wantin’ to get rid of some hair on her face and those dents in her thighs.”

“Dents?”

“Yeah, you know, she had a bunch of tiny little dents all over her thighs.”

“Oh, you mean cellulite.”

“Whatever. It looked like hail damage to me. She tried exercise, and creams and all sorts of stuff, but nothin’ worked. I suggested Bondo, but she just looked at me like I was an idiot or somethin’. Anywho, she also wanted to get rid some of them old black hairs on her chin. I told her to shave ‘em off, but she said that they’d grow back thicker. Then she seen this advertisement where they remove the hair through electrocution.”

“You mean electrolysis,” the creature said.

“Yeah, that’s it, electrolysis. Anywho, she called and they wanted too much money for the procedure, so she figured that she’d just do it herself. So, she gets the lamp off of the nightstand, and yanks the cord out. She stripped the wires, attached one of ‘em to one of them hairs on her chin and the other she tied around her little finger. Then she stuck her foot in the commode, so she’d get a good ground. Water’s a good conductor, you know. Then she plugged it in.”

“You’re kidding,” said the creature.

“Wish I was,” I said. “Anywho, it worked.”

“It did?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It worked a little too good. It not only took care of the hair on her chin, but the hair on the rest of her head, too.”

“Oh my.”

“Yeah, it weren’t pretty. But, on the plus side, it did blow all of them dents out of her thighs.”

“You are kidding, right?”

“Naw, I ain’t kiddin’. Heck, the house still smells like burnt hair.”

“This just sounds too unreal.”

“You think this sounds unreal, you should have heard her hollerin’. The ambulance that picked her up didn’t even have to use the siren. They just hung her head out the window.”

There was silence on the other end. “Hello?” I said. “Are you still there?”

“Mr. Mitchum, this was not funny, and just for that, I’m taking you off the list for the free DVD player,” and she hung up.

“Ha!” I said as I hung up the phone. I knew before I even turned around that my wife Janet was standin’ somewhere behind be. I could feel her eyes borin’ into the back of my head. Slowly, I turned around. I was right. There she was.

“What?” I said.

“Hair? On my chin? Cellulite? Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“It’s a gift?”

“A gift? More like a curse. And guess who the curse is on. Me, that’s who! Now, people will think I have a beard and cellulite.”

“Why would they think that?”

“Because you’ll probably write about it.”

“Who me? Naw. Never,”

Heh, heh. Don’t tell her about it. Let her read it for herself.

27

 

[antelopedundee]

Sometimes if I'm in asshole mode I answer the phone saying telemarketing research.

 

[teele1]

out standing