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Why so much hesitation to answer calls for fear of it being a telemarketer? It only takes a few seconds to hear their first words, then just hang up?! You all act like it is the plague or something...
Why so much hesitation to answer calls for fear of it being a telemarketer? It only takes a few seconds to hear their first words, then just hang up?! You all act like it is the plague or something...
Yeah, for real. Debt collectors are a different story, but as long as that's not an issue....
1 - Buy cars without looking at the title, or even not get the title at all.
2 - Sell cars and take payments.
3 - Have babies with people they aren't married to.
4 - Co-sign loans for others.
5 - Shoplift.
6 - Commit other crimes.
7 - Drive 10 to 15 miles per hour over the speed limit.
I could go on but, to make a long story short, human beings are, for the most part, inherently stupid.
And that's why so many get taken advantage by scammers.
If you can't trust yourself to talk to a potential scammer without inevitably becoming a victim of the scam, then your problems are severe. I don't know the stats on this, but I'd venture to guess that the vast majority of the people being scammed over the phone are age 75+. My favorite story that I know of firsthand is two-part: it first involved my mother's friend's mom, age 90 or so, believing a call from someone claiming to be her grandson in need of bail money. Following instructions, she went to a nearby pharmacy and attempted to buy $1,000 worth of iTunes cards, because somehow that's acceptable currency for bail, lol. Luckily the good Samaritan clerk intervened and prevented her from making the purchase.
My grandmother, also around age 90, then got this exact call a few months later, with the caller posing as my supposedly jailed brother. According to the caller/'my brother', he'd attended a wedding in New Jersey and gotten into a fight. Amazing. All the more entertaining knowing what a pacifist my brother is...and that none of his friends from Cornell (or home) are going to be getting married in New Jersey anytime soon. I wonder if the person or people behind it ever got caught
Last edited by Matt Marcinkiewicz; 10-18-2017 at 08:07 PM..
why not answer it? do you hide from a knock on the door as well if you don't know the person?
it's not like they can hurt you if you answer a phone, if you don't like the call then hang up
My mother does. Especially if they're Johova Witnesses, for some reason she's deathly afraid of them. As in, mute the TV set, tiptoe to the peephole and make no sound so as to make them think nobody's home. I just open the door and threaten legal action against them and their pastor if they don't leave my property immediately, and don't come back. And you can nail them on legal grounds if they do return after you've evicted them (it's called "trespassing").
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Someone called the other day and it had a local area code (because it was a spoofed number) and it was some doofus trying to get my credit card info. Luckily I have ways of dealing with these people.
I love getting scammer calls because I turn it into phone sex. "Uh huh... what are you wearing?", "ohhhhh yeah, that's so hot", "you sound cute, god I'm getting so hot talking to you", fake orgasmic moaning, you know, garbage like that. Usually they just hang up or supervisor out (i.e. chicken out) but one time I kept this one gal on the line (was selling insurance or something) for like 15 minutes before she finally got fed up and supervisor'd out. I might have kept her on the phone longer if my buddy hadn't been over listening to it on the line monitor and cracking up, his laughing in the background was probably getting picked up. I mean If they're going to call and waste your time then run with it and waste theirs. You know?
I guarantee if it's some bible thumper or fringe-rightwing group calling and you do that you will NEVER hear from them again! Great way to get taken off calling lists during election season!
I love getting scammer calls because I turn it into phone sex. "Uh huh... what are you wearing?", "ohhhhh yeah, that's so hot", "you sound cute, god I'm getting so horny talking to you", fake orgasmic moaning, you know, garbage like that.<>
Is that legal, I mean even if they initiated the call isn't it interstate pornography?
Freedom of speech., something we still more or less have in our great nation. I mean really who cares about legality? If they're going to violate you by calling to sell you some crap that may or may not exist then it's your right, nay, your responsibility to violate them back. Turnabout is fair play.
The Indians from "weendoows sekooritee" are my favorite. Especially at the end when I finally reveal I'm a Linux user who's been faking playing along and they start cussing me out for it.
I am taking a wild guess that desperate lonely people answer private calls, or seniors that are not hip to what it usually is (telemarketer) or someone who knows celebs that don't want their # out and call from private. I have known a few celebs that do that. Funny thing is A list celebs have multiple #s - these B list celebs have paranoia for little reason and only one #. I have a family member I greatly dislike & I call from a private. Although you can have apps now with different #s on your cell, I noticed they all started to charge within the last couple weeks. They were free apps.
I have never answered calls from numbers I don't know. A friend of mine can't help himself, he answers every single call he gets. It will drive him crazy not knowing who it was if he doesn't answer.
I have had people finally leave angry voicemails saying they have called a number of times over the past couple of days and I never answer my phone. When I call them back (if I even do) I usually ask why they didn't leave a voicemail to begin with and I would have already called them back and I tell them I never answer numbers I don't know. Those people are probably mad all the time because very few people answer numbers they don't know.
(I'm not sure I'm in the right forum. I couldn't really determine where to put this question, so if it should be somewhere else, please move it there.)
I'm curious why, in this day and age, so many people still answer phone calls from unfamiliar numbers. Given that 98% of today's phones display the incoming number, it's easier than ever to know whether you want to answer or not. I haven't answered such a call in many years.
And yet, there's always something in the news about new phone scams that people are falling for. I still hear friends gripe about annoying sales calls or surveys coming at the worst possible times. I don't get it. Why are you still answering?
For me, more or less this, though I don't go to these extremes.
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