I received a telephone call this morning. On the other end was the automated voice of a woman speaking in an urgent yet authoritative tone. “She” said something along the lines of:
Attention! The warranty on your automobile has expired. We have sent you several warnings in the mail but you have refused to respond. Press 1 to renew your warranty.
I got really nervous for a second. It wasn’t hard to believe that I hadn’t replied to junk-mail, since I tend to let that stuff pile up. Then I remembered something. I don’t own an automobile.
Whatever company is sending out these calls is lying. They have no idea if your automobile warranty has expired, and they don’t care. They almost certainly haven’t even mailed you anything. But they are calling thousands of people telling them they have. All this business needs is some percentage of the people they call to press 1 and inquire about automobile warranties. The company doesn’t even need to pay someone to sit at the phone making calls. This shameful practice makes a mockery of respectable capitalism in which a benevolent entrepreneur earns an honest dollar by having an idea and tapping into a human need.
I would have pressed 1 and tried to ascertain who was making these fraudulent calls, but I had picked up the call on a rotary phone.
I’m not sure what this scam is, but I receive one of these calls about once a week. It must be some way to determine if it is a working phone number because it says to press “1″ to get information about the warranty or press “3″ to remove your number from their list. I have pressed both during different calls (now I wish I hadn’t) but both numbers just disconnect the call. I’ve tried calling back to the phone number on the caller ID but I just get a recording saying “Your number has been removed from the preferred caller list.” (You’d think that was a good thing but no, they still call!) Today I registered with the National Do Not Call Registry (www.donotcall.gov). We’ll see if that works.
Learn to whistle like an old modem. It’s not hard.
No really. Seriously.
If the telemarketing gadgets hear the sound of a modem, they’ll take your number out of their lists automatically.
I should seriously go into business making “modem whistles”.