Threatening Call
Complaint
Jerrod Brown
Country: United States
I get three or four calls from these guys every day. I'm tired of it. The automated call asks me to press 9 or 0 to speak to a live representative. I did. When the guy asked me to read my account number to him I asked to get a verification email from him so I knew who he was. He got really irritated and aggressive telling me to F-off and then started calling me a homo, a sack chaser, and went into Mom jokes. Also stated that he wished he could come through the phone and rip me a new [***].
Wow, seriously? These calls come in from different phone numbers every single day, so its obviously a scam. I really wish they weren't hiding behind these anonymous phone numbers. How can we stop these calls?
Wow, seriously? These calls come in from different phone numbers every single day, so its obviously a scam. I really wish they weren't hiding behind these anonymous phone numbers. How can we stop these calls?
Comments
These scams often call pretending to be associated with your bank.
Your bank will not call you asking you for your card number.
Even if your bank called you claiming to be checking on some suspicious transaction, YOU should ALWAYS call your bank back at the customer service number from your card or statement. No real bank employee will be in any way upset if you do so, as they are as much concerned about security as you are.
There is NEVER any reason to read an account number to some stranger who calls you on the phone.
It doesn't matter what they say, or who they say they are. Anyone can say anything on the phone.
I use one of the following options when I don't recognize the phone number calling.
1. If you have a fax machine, you can do this as well: when the call comes in, I press the option on my keypad to speak with a representative. I engage them in a bit of friendly conversation/banter while making my way to my fax machine. This is important: speak very quietly so that they must turn up the volume on their phone to hear you. When I think that I've got them, I hit the "transmit now" button on my fax machine and let it kick in. I love hearing them shriek! When they've hung up, I let the fax machine answer all my calls for the next few hours in case I get any callbacks. All of my friends and family know to use my mobile phone to reach me. My "home" phone (land-line) is for emergency calls.
2. I love to engage them in meaningless, friendly conversation about their job, their name, their location, what they like to do when they're not at work, what's their favorite color, how much they make (they usually won't answer this question), how they commute to work, do they have significant others in their lives, are they married, etc. When they get insistent about getting back to business, I sound hurt and tell them that I like to get to know the people that I do business with. This will, sometimes, get them to relent to more questions: I then ask them questions about their business, what their company is called, if they like what they're doing with their lives, etc. This really extends the call from a few seconds to well over 5-10 minutes. Now, I'm pretty sure these people are paid to wrap things up as quickly as they can -- and I'm sure they are being audited by their supervisors -- so they, usually, start to get antsy and try to get me back into the "swing of things" by returning to the subject of their call. This is when I start in about "finding God," learning how to swim, my last summer vacation, etc. Again, it's filler and it's made-up but they just can't get me back to the subject. Usually, by this point, they hang up. If you waste 10-minutes or more of their time, they usually get into trouble with their supervisors.
3. I love to ask them crazy questions after a little friendly chit-chat. Once, while speaking with a young man, I asked him, quite politely, if he had ever hit someone with a hammer. The man was quiet. I then told him about how my abductor would hurt me and how I wished that I could hit him with a hammer. Usually this ends up either freaking them out. Sometimes, after making strange confessions, I resort to the old fax machine connection (see number one above) to end the call on a high note.
4. Sometimes, for days/weeks at a time, I leave the fax machine to answer all of my calls. Usually ends up quiet for a couple of weeks after that.
5. Sometimes, I push the option to speak with someone and then put the phone down and play some music or a TV show on my computer -- porn works well too.
6. I've saved the best for last: get to a representative and then take them to your bathroom to hear you do your business.
I hope this helps someone out there. I know how frustrating it is. Since our government is innefectual at routing these [***], it's up to us to get creative and make it a sport.
They're never gonna get you to purchase anything or do anything that they want: why not have some fun?