BS: funny or not phone calls

Subject: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 17 - 03:57 PM

ring, I pick it up and the screen says Maryland. Hello.
Hello are you the home owner?
There are no homos here
So you're a rental then?
No, I am a human being
thank you, click.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Joe_F
Date: 17 Oct 17 - 09:14 PM

"If it's the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?" -- Cartoon by James Thurber

*

Frame 1: Harmless-looking zhlub sitting at a desk. Phone rings.
Frame 2: He picks it up.
Frame 3: "Hell, yes!"
Frame 4: "Fuck, no!"
Frame 5: He hangs up.
Frame 6: Same as Frame 1.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Donuel
Date: 17 Oct 17 - 09:57 PM

[one must never say 'yes' when answering the phone anymore]
There is a scam that records the yes and uses it to make you liable for a purchase.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: BobL
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 03:01 AM

IYBTYBA

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 03:33 AM

So Micro$oft ring you from deepest India where English is not their first nor even their second language. And they don't get you to switch-on your PC.

What can they salvage from all those failed attempts? get a recording of "yes" and "no" - storage is cheap and you never know - they might be able to sell the database. Never heard anyone falling for that? How could you? The victims always profess they didn't know either. It is plausible and spreading such a rumour/myth isn't going to hurt! Right?

It might change some peeps' telephone answering style.

And on the scam front it is possible with current household WiFi routers for scammers to intercept connection at critical stages of sign-on according to New Scientist and it is not confined to one manufacturer - security patches are available but will users patch? They have to be within WiFi range to get at you but I bet there are plenty posh ghettos that are a happy hunting ground.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 03:34 AM

Snopes have already investigated this story Say Yes scam

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 04:06 AM

My favourite wind-up calls were on a local (Manchester, UK) radio station by a DJ called Steve Penk. Look him up.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Jos
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 06:57 AM

Elderly-sounding caller: Is Karen there?

Me: No, there's no-one here called Karen. You must have the wrong number.

Elderly caller: Well what's Karen's number then?

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 07:19 AM

as Snopes cautions:

which a scammer could authorize charges in another person's name simply by possessing a voice recording of that person saying "yes", without also already possessing a good deal of personal and account information for that person,

And you think they are not trawling for any info that will help them triangulate. Tel No. with a recording. Tel No. with a name. Tel No. with credit card number. It still needs more data but they can sell the data they have to someone who has a different data set. They don't need every entry to ring the cash till. Only one or two would feed them for months.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 02:14 PM

Love that James Thurber cartoon. Scary woman.

Meanwhile, I have a difficult last name, so I can usually tell if the caller is actually familiar with the family or not. I used to hang up and then ask, rhetorically, why they thought I would want to talk to them if they can't pronounce my name.

Then my kids got old enough to be allowed to answer the phone, and I heard one say Hello, pause, um, why would my parent want to talk to you if you can't pronounce their name? That person never called back.

Remember, your kids learn a lot more than what you are actually trying to teach them!

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 02:33 PM

The phone rang so I picked it up and asked "Who's speaking, please?" The voice at the other end said "You are."


This is true: I rang a contact number for Welcombe Village Hall to buy some tickets for a gig. The phone at the other end clattered off the hook and a dog started barking down it. As I insanely repeated "Hello? Hello...?" the dog howled like a banshee.

I tried again a few hours later, got the bloke this time and bought the tickets. I started to mention the earlier incident, but he just said "The dog answered, didn't he? He barked, then howled as you spoke? Yeah, he always does that..." He sounded quite bored, as if what had happened had been the most normal, mundane thing in the world. A while later I found out that my friend had had exactly the same experience with that dog buying tickets for the same gig.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 02:48 PM

If they have your phone # it is likely they have your address if they have that they have dates of ownership etc., if they ask your age tell them 91 or 17. No one gets a social security number. No one. Especially those who insist. 207 21 6420

We are getting computer generated English language calls now. You can mess up the AI response within 2 sentences. "you are not a real person"
of course I am.. "You are not a real computer" long pause, gotcha

Some of the voices can be highly animated that won't allow you to easily get a word in edgewise.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 02:58 PM

A friend of my son always used to answer the phone with 'Hello, is Dave there.' I rang once and when he said it I said 'Yes, I'll just get him for you' and hung up. It was funny at the time.

My niece once rang and said 'Hello, is that Uncle Dave?'. I replied, it depends who that is. I am not everybody's Uncle Dave!'

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: BobL
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 03:50 AM

I'm afraid my automatic response to "Can you hear me?" would be "Pardon?"

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 04:05 AM

From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 18 Oct 17 - 02:33 PM
The phone rang so I picked it up and asked "Who's speaking, please?" The voice at the other end said "You are."

So you were both wrong.
When you asked "Who's speaking please?" you should have known that you were.
When they replied "You are.", they were.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 04:52 AM

Phone rings and Stan Laurel pick it up and says "It sure is" and replaces the receiver
Hardy asks "what was that about?"
Stan "he said 'Long Distance from Atlanta'"


It sure is!

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 04:58 AM

Phone rings and Spike Jones answers "You don't say!"    " You don't say!"    "You - don't - say!"

the City Slickers ask "Who was it?"

Spike "he didn't say".

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 05:20 AM

When I were a little lad oop north my uncle always answered the phone with "Great Harwood two two seven two..." and he wasn't unique in answering that way. I always found it a bit odd. When I ring a number I always identify myself before asking if I may speak to whoever it is I want to speak to. I think it's execrable bad manners not to do that. I'm not going to pass the phone to Mrs Steve until I know who wants to speak to her. Caller display has obviated the need for that among regular contacts, I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: banjoman
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 05:57 AM

We were plagued with nuisance calls until we devised the perfect way to stop them. We only answer the phone to numbers we know from the caller display. All others get a recorded message stating that we do not accept calls from withheld or unknown numbers. They are invited to leave a message and a number if the wish us to call back. They never do. We check for messages a couple of times each day. No more nuisance calls.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 07:48 AM

I prefer to answer a phone call with "Yo-oou Raa-anng"

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: kendall
Date: 19 Oct 17 - 04:18 PM

When we moved here the phone company gave me the number of some deadbeat, and his creditors drove me batty until one day I was fed up. one of them called, said may I speak to Sean? I said "NO" he said, "Why not"? I said. :He went crazy and I shot him." No more calls.

Another time, some wise guy gave my number to a dating service. I got call after call with propositions which I declined. Finally, she said, "are you seeing someone" and I said, "Yes I am." then the pushy woman said, " Well, is it serious?" that was the last straw, I said, "It will be if her husband finds out." I swear this is a true story.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 05:13 AM

LOL

My mother sold coal and had many stories of strange buyers. One involved a woman trying to show she had come into money and could afford a phone. It was a status symbol then. (in a UK Black Country - think Midlands owr kid)

"The phone number is nairer one, nairer one, double fower tyou"

For our US and metrocentric readers, that would approximate to 00442. Perhaps it looses something in the translation.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Raggytash
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 05:34 AM

My Mum and Dad worked in the Iron and Steel Buisness.










Me Mum took in Ironing and me Dad went out stealing.



I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 10:21 AM

What's the difference between Iron Man and Iron Woman?



Iron Man is a superhero but Iron Woman is an instruction.



Me coat's on...

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: EBarnacle
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 07:02 PM

When I get called by the people who want to "fix" my computer, I always ask them which of the 5 computers I have running. That keeps them going and usually shuts them down. Today, the caller told me "the one on your router." I then told him I was off line and asked which operating system was buggy. He hung up. Too bad, I could have kept him going for a while.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: frogprince
Date: 20 Oct 17 - 09:16 PM

Ah, yes; as it happens, I heard from EBarnacle's buddy again today. I was thinking that I would mess with him for a bit, so I told him how glad I was that he called, as my computer was all messed up. He asked me what I was seeing on it. I then discovered that I didn't feel that much like wasting time with him or trying that hard to be clever. I said "all I can see on the screen is blurry triangles", and hung up. The phone immediately rang again. I picked it up and put it down. It rang again immediately. Repeat. I guess at that point he gave up on me for the day,

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 06:17 AM

I kept one of them going for quite a time by pointing out I had a wristwatch that had a computer in it, my pone was a very fast computer, the PVR and Satellite were micro-controllers/computers and that was a good sport for a while. Then I told him I had an apple and it went silent for a about 2 seconds and a manager came on. He upped the ante but didn't last as long. Spoilsports.

These days I just keep repeating Apple. They know I have a PC, they get the message. They give up quickly.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: EBarnacle
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 10:40 AM

My point is that we perform a community service by keeping the scammers from talking with other potential victims, evem if it is just for a minute or two. I had one who hung up on me after screaming "shove those 5 computers up your ass." Another, when he asked if they were all on wireless, told me the problem was probably with my server and he needed acces to that. Of course I told him I would just reprogram the server. Then he hung up.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 11:10 AM

One of my favourites is that I pretend to follow their instructions and when they ask what is on the screen I say RABBITS, why are there RABBITS on my screen, I hate RABBITS, why have you put RABBITS on my screen.

The normal response is CLICK.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: frogprince
Date: 21 Oct 17 - 11:59 AM

My last young-lady-with-help-to-reduce-your-credit-card-expenses call ended just a little differently than I expected. We quickly got to her question, "Do you have over $5,000. in credit card debt?" I replied, "I have about $80,000 in credit card debt. She then repeated the "$5,000 dollar question". I repeated the same answer. She repeated the question like a parrot at least five times. When I repeated my answer for the last time, she said "Have a nice day" and hung up.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 Oct 17 - 07:54 AM

When I get a call from the "Windows technical department", I tell them I already have double glazing throughout the house. If they don't take the hint and insist on talking computers, I wax lyrical on the benefits of uPVC over wood, not having to paint it, etc. They don't seem to stay too long.

I haven't tried it on anyone who actually wants to sell me double glazing but I imagine a discussion on the pros and cons of Windows10 compared with Windows7 or WindowsXP would achieve much the same result.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: EBarnacle
Date: 23 Oct 17 - 12:29 PM

We get occasional calls from people selling solar panels. They cannot seem to understand that people who live in an apartment don't have roof access and should be taken off the list.

Subject: RE: BS: funny or not phone calls
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Oct 17 - 03:27 PM

Hi this is (perky) Heather if you would like to consolidate and reduce your credit card.. I press #2. Many rings "Hello this is Denise do you have a credit card debt over 15K?
Dear, I have between 3.2 to 7 million dollars in debt and I've never been happier. First the banks treat me like glass ass Royalty and caters to my every whim. "would you like to reduce y.."
I'm gonna milk this debt for the rest of my life, you see once you park your assets off shore the only choice banks have is to make me as happy as possible. I'm set for life
click