I just got home from a long day, and the phone rang just as I was getting settled in to finish reading a book I started yesterday. It was the home phone, which is rarely used in our house, so I knew it was likely a scam, a robocall,  or someone asking me to donate to some fraudulent cause.

Now, I’m hoping it really was a scam or someone fraudulently asking me to donate to a cause.

I used to get downright angry about the stupid robocalls, scam calls, and fraudulent donation calls. Then I started having fun with them. I started playing games.

One of my games is to answer cheerfully and listen carefully to their spiel. Sometimes it’s a person, and sometimes it’s someone pressing a button with a prerecorded message…you know…they always ask for Bryant first. When you say they have the wrong number, they press a button so the recording might respond, “Well, you can help me. I’m calling on behalf of the Egg Handlers of America.” And they launch into a long speech about how your donation can help their organization. Since the number often shows the name of another company or “Unknown caller,” I feel pretty sure it’s fraudulent. I let them finish the long speech and then say, “I’m sorry, my child came in while you were talking. Could you repeat that?” They press the button to repeat the speech, or maybe it’s a real person who repeats the speech, and then they say, “Can we count on you to support us?” I then yell, “Touchdown! I’m sorry…my team just scored! Could you repeat that?” Often, they will jump straight to, “Can we count on your support?” I then ask, “Support for what?” They usually hang up at that point.

Another tactic is to answer with an unknown bad foreign accent. Don’t start saying I’m “appropriating” someone else’s culture by using a made up foreign accent. I’m just trying to stop the madness, people! Sometimes I simply will tell them early on that I don’t speak English. Sometimes, I let them go through the whole speech, and then tell them they “talk too fast.” I ask them to repeat more slowly. They go through it all again. I tell them again they “talk too fast.” They usually hang up.

Sometimes, I actually feel sorry for the person on the other end of the line. I know it’s likely they are working for pennies in a developing country. The person on the phone likely isn’t making much money at all from the scam. It’s their employers who are cashing in.

I know. I shouldn’t even engage with these folks, but dang it! I can get mad about it, or I can make it fun.

And that leads us to tonight. Tonight, I tried a different approach. When I saw a number pop up on the Caller ID that I thought was a sales/scam/robocall, I picked up the phone and yelled, sounding out of breath, “It’s done! There’s blood everywhere! What do I do now?!?!” Click. They hung up immediately. My husband walked in from the other room and asked me what I was yelling about. I told him what had happened, and he asked, “Who was it?” I said, “I don’t know.” He then asked, “How do you know it wasn’t a parent from school?” I explained it was an “unknown” caller from a familiar-looking number that always calls saying they are working for a nonprofit. Surely, if it had been a legit call, they would have said something. But they didn’t. Plus, no one calls me on my home phone.

My husband then said, “I hope it wasn’t a real person. I hope they don’t call the cops.” Yeah…that would be bad. But since I’ve had time to write all this, and the cops aren’t knocking down our front door, I guess it’s safe to say it was a scam call. Whew!

I don’t know how to block unwanted calls on my home phone, but on cell phones, there are lots of apps out there that can help reduce the number of unwanted calls you receive. My favorite, though, is one called RoboKiller. I saw the creator talking about it on TV, and it sounds awesome. It plays games with them…the same kinds of games I mentioned before…wasting their time and decreasing their revenue. You can read about it here. Or you can see a news story about it here. You can download it from the App Store and get a one week free trial. Service for 12 months, is $29.99, or get one month for $3.99.

As for that call I received today, I hope they won’t call back, but just in case they do, I need to come up with something else. Any suggestions?

 

 

 

*