The Rembis Report And Other Fascinating Topics - Volume CXLI

Stacy? Can you hear me? Hello? [CLICK]

That click is me hanging up on the prerecorded message that sounds like a sad, lovelorn young man seeking his dear Stacy. I am not falling for it. I have heard it before, many, many times.

Perhaps you have, too.

The first time I heard this exact recording was a few years ago, maybe even as long as five or ten years ago. I am not keeping track. Back then, that very first time, I replied, you have a wrong number, and the reply was, “That’s okay, you would probably be interested in …” I don’t recall what they said after that. I still don’t stick around to find out.

Whoever is calling, they are still using that exact same recording to try and sell whatever it is they are trying to sell. But it won’t work. I won’t buy anything. I barely spend money in stores and rarely shop online. Absolute necessities are about all I care to invest in, if at all. So, whoever is pushing buttons on the other end of the phone to get to me, is really wasting their time. Wasting their life, when you think about it.

They could be doing so much more than trying to sell something. They could be creating something worthwhile, like helping to find solutions to aid the planet, or humanity as a whole. But phone soliciting exists because this is the only job some people can get. Some are homebound in wheelchairs, and can’t get around, for example. At least they are employed, I guess. That is something. It is not a fun job. Not really. Inbound customer service telephony is one thing. Lots of businesses need that, and need more people altogether. Whether or not anybody is willing to employ more customer service people is another thing.

Only a small percentage truly enjoy outbound calling to near constant dismissal, rejection, and abuse. They are most likely sociopaths you would not want riding next to you on the bus.

They are the ones who hang in there, pushing the buttons every day, waiting for somebody to give up and believe whatever they have to say, and fork over a credit card number. But phone solicitors are no longer dialing ten numbers to get to you. Computers dial swaths of numbers for them. Live people then sit back and wait for a live connection.

Auto-dialers ring number after number. Monitored through artificial intelligence software, the program hangs up on answering machines and disconnected numbers, and prompts the live operator to connect when it senses a live person on the receiving end. “Fish on,” so to speak.

It is my nature to always answer the phone. Because I don’t care who is calling. It might be important. Maybe it is the prize patrol from Publisher’s Clearing House calling from down the street looking for my address. You never know.

Maybe it is somebody I personally know, calling to invite me over, or just to say “Hi!”

Or maybe it is somebody I can mess with. This is the real reason for connecting with phone solicitors. To waste their time. If they didn’t have time to waste, they would not call in the first place, so I am helping them meet their goals. I mean, they are paid by the hour, right?

Over the years I have built up a long list of rebuttals to gaslight solicitors and keep them on the line as long as possible. Some replies got old or outdated so I rarely use them, and depending on my mood, or if I am truly busy, like watching TV for example, I won’t answer at all. But for the most part, I try to connect on every call and get past the robo-caller to reach the person whose livelihood depends on whatever they are trying to accomplish and waste their time, because I am just wired that way. Completely evil.

Our home phone has a call block feature. When a call comes in from somebody you want to block, two quick clicks adds that number to the list, and the next time they call, the phone rings once, the display reads BLOCKING CALL, and it hangs up. Easy-peasy. But then, you don’t get to mess with the caller, so there is that. Anyway, I noticed a feature in the phone menu that I did not know we had until the other day. The blocked caller list of every call we ever blocked since getting the phone. Not that it is real important, but I was shocked to discover that we have over 600 numbers on that list! I think the phone is only about five years old. I had no idea that we had blocked so many numbers.

A call coming in the other day was from the burger joint down the road, Pete & Shorty’s. I wondered, who would be calling from there? Somebody who had misplaced their cell? A wrong number, perhaps? No, it was Mary from Senior Care Authority, calling to sell something. I knew I wouldn’t want anything from Mary at Senior Care Authority, and she (or some other Mary at Senior Care Authority), had called in the past. This is not a robo-call, but a live person following a script, unwavering in their delivery, asking questions about who I am, how I am doing, and wanting to share some valuable news I don’t care about.

How do you know it is not important, Mike? What if it was something you would be interested in?

If it were something I was interested in I would have found their name in a phone book and called them, that’s how. When they call me multiple times, and spoof Pete & Shorty’s phone number, I know it is not important. Call it a gut feeling.

For this call, I employed my latest ruse that works every time to get rid of somebody quick. I said “This is the switchboard. How may I direct your call?”

Of course, Mary is not really paying attention, and just continues her spiel, so I add, “Who are you trying to reach?” Sometimes I add, “This is the Internal Revenue Service. What is your claim number?”, and they hang up, but this time I said “You have reached the County Detention Center, may I have the name of the inmate you are calling?” 

They usually hang up on the county detention center right away. But not Mary at Senior Care Authority, using the phone at Pete & Shorty’s! Mary says, “I am calling for Mister Michael Rembis to advise him of his Medicare benefits. Are you currently enrolled in Medicare part A or part B?”

Damn! Mary’s a badass.

I know, right? So I said, “I believe Mister Rembis is serving a life sentence in the state penitentiary, would you like me to transfer the call?”

If they are employing artificial intelligence that clearly huffs and continues with the pitch at all costs, it is really believable, but I think Mary was a real person this time. She continued, “No, that is not necessary. You can save up to thirty percent on your current medical prescriptions and much more on home health care benefits. What address may I send an information packet to?”

Wow! Impressive. But I don’t fumble. I have way more experience messing with people than Mary does. I said, “I don’t believe Mister Rembis is going to need that. He is a ward of the state. In fact, he may be on death row any day now, but would you like me to transfer the call?”

“No. I just need the address to send the information to.”

I said nothing and blocked Pete & Shorty’s phone number. So long, Mary.

So, who won?

Depends on how you look at it. Mary certainly isn’t mailing me anything and nobody is ever going to be able to call me from Pete & Shorty’s again, so maybe I did? I don’t know. I blocked the call before they hung up, so you decide.

Now, I truly doubt that Mary was using the phone at Pete & Shorty’s. How the technology works, I can’t describe the technical aspects, but it happens every day. Spoofing is when a caller hides their real phone number and uses somebody else’s. Depending upon whether or not the solicitor is following FCC rules for compliance, spoofing may be legal or illegal.

You mean, somebody can fake a number legally, Mike?

Darn right they can.

Legitimate callers following compliance rules can assign a fake local number to a cell phone on the other side of the world. It may make more sense for everyone in your organization to have their phones reflect a caller ID from a local central number that can really be called back, than to have a bunch of different cell phones from all over the place confusing customers.

But crooks can do the same thing. Mary is probably a very nice person, and not a crook. She just works for some crooks. She needs the job. I get that. I don’t know the details of their scam, but I do know they are crooks because they are using Pete & Shorty’s phone number. It won’t affect Pete or Shorty (I never go there), but if they were legitimate, they would have their own local caller ID assigned to Mary and all their other outbound operators.

When receiving an inbound call, you may have heard an Asian dialect, generally from India. This is because there are almost 2,000 call centers in India. I couldn’t find recent statistics but in 2015 there were over 350,000 people working in Indian call centers. The Philippines had over 400,000. In the USA we had over 7,000,000.

Not all call center callers are scammers. With so many people staying employed in the profession there are plenty of legitimate firms. So, how do scams work, and how can you tell them apart from honest business? There are way too many ways for me to list here, but take a tour of call center scams on YouTube and you will be amazed to find seemingly endless content on the subject. Pick any video and you will learn something you never knew. After watching a few, what surprised me (that probably shouldn’t have) was how many call centers run a legitimate shop during the day, and run a scam by night, laundering the money through the front end business.

There are hundreds of different scams. Call spoofing is probably your best indicator that the caller is out to get you, and call blocking, while it may work, and make you feel good, it is not a solution.

I am not going to get into all the legislation and congressional battles we have seen and seek out impending dockets, but suffice it to say that lots of people want to make it stop.

In the meantime, you can do one of these things:

GET rid of your phone.

NEVER answer your phone.

BLOCK every call.

OR use one of my handy all-purpose rebuttals. Go ahead! Pick one and go for it! Flex those improv muscles! Have fun!

I have been waiting a half hour for the pizza, when is he going to get here?

So glad you called. Who are you voting for? I want to tell you why that’s a bad idea.

Is this Gary? I was holding for Gary. Can you transfer me?

To complete your purchase I just need your credit card number. Go ahead as soon as you are ready.

Dude - Learn how to dial. You are calling the other side of the room. I’m right behind you.

Okay, I have your appointment scheduled for tomorrow at 3:00 PM. Is there anything else I can help you with?

What was your name? Caller repeats name. Great. What is your social security number? No matter what they say just keep repeating, What is your social security number?

Stacy? Is that you?

I know these aren’t solutions for anything, but hanging up is a missed opportunity. Especially when it is a scammer. Don’t feel bad about trying to ruin their day. They were trying to ruin yours.

Thanks for reading.

If you are new to the Rembis Report and would like to read any of the previous issues, PLEASE CLICK HERE to access the archives. To read it from the beginning, PLEASE GET A COPY of The Rembis Report: An Observation.