You know the one. They’re selling you something about your student loans, or warning you that you’re about to be arrested, or your Social Security number has been suspended (that’s not a thing), or maybe the IRS is coming to toss you in the clink (also not a thing).
But even if you know they’re full of crap and just trying to get you to answer the phone for whatever reason, it’s so annoying to have to send those calls to voicemail and/or delete said voicemails every couple of days.
How do you get it to stop?
These 14 people have their ways – maybe try them for yourself!
14. I wonder how they mark you down in their files after that.
Yeah. Got a call from the “duct cleaning” people. I told them I don’t have ducts, I have geese… They just hung up on me and haven’t bothered me since.
13. When you’ve got more time on your hands than they do.
The thing that gets them is wasting their time. They are getting paid to make calls so the longer you keep them on the better. One thing I like to do is start a rambling story that goes no where like Grampa Simpson does on ‘The Simpsons’.
You know: “Survey? Yes, I’ve taken some surveys in my time, why, I even worked on one. Now I think it was in ’06, or was it ’07? No, it must have been ’06 because that was the Winter I crashed my Buick. God I miss that old car! It was such a beautiful shade of green like the jungle, now, I’ve been to the jungle and BOY do they have mosquitoes…”
12. I can play dumb.
Just play dumb and eat up their time.
They are playing a numbers game and don’t want to spend 30 minutes with some good that gives them nothing
In that 30 they would rather get shot down 20 times and maybe find that old lady they can trick
11. They don’t like to waste their time.
Answer the phone. Connect to an agent, mute your phone and carry on with what you were doing. They quickly take you off their diallers when you waste their agents time.
10. If you happen to be bilingual…
My friend speaks English, Spanish and Russian. He would just start switching randomly switching between languages and each language had a different personality. He would confuse them into total submission. They rarely called back.
9. Even he knew he didn’t sound legit.
Got a call from “the social security administration”. I asked for the company’s address and he paused and then said “New York, America”.
8. That’s awfully professional!
Told them that I was a member of their branch a floor above them and that they misdialed.
They said “Fuck you” and hung up. Didn’t get a call back from them for a few months.
7. Some people are way quicker than I ever would be.
I’m sure another scammer will call again since it’s just an act that all of them do, but I got a social security scam call. They told me they had found 22 pounds of cocaine in a Toyota Camry with some blood in the front seat because they always say that exact line. I responded:
“Oh my god that’s terrible!”
“So are you telling me that this was not you who left the car there?”
“No that was me but I had 30 pounds of cocaine in that car. Are you telling me that 8 pounds just went missing?”
So he was very confused and I was accusing him of stealing it, then he started swearing at me until he hung up.
Edit: Holy jesus I didnt think this would make me so popular! Thank you for the upvotes and the silver
6. Some people just don’t know when to quit.
I tried to troll a guy who was clearly calling people to get their bank account information by saying they were giving away money to help college students. He was from India and was dedicated to his job. I tried to piss him off for about 30 minutes but he kept interrupting me and I eventually told him to fuck off and hung up the phone. He kept cutting me off saying “But MY FRIEND…MY FRIEND!”
5. Even they don’t want to touch that with a ten-foot pole.
Got a call that there was a virus on my computer told them that was impossible as I throw my computer into the river so the cops couldn’t get any evidence on me. Haven’t heard from them since.
4. That wasn’t the level of cash they were looking for…
I took a call from the “I hear you’ve had an accident that wasn’t your fault” call that I get about once a week. It’s automated at first, but as soon as I said yes I got put through to someone. I spent 20 mins explaining how someone reared into my lane and crashed into me and it wasn’t my fault, at the end when they asked me for details of the damage I explained that they bent the handlebars a bit but the bicycle was mostly OK. They hung up on me and I haven’t back from them for about a month.
3. I guess turnabout isn’t fair play.
I asked them for THEIR social security and they hung up on ME. wack
2. This seems like a pretty easy trick!
I always hit the button to speak with a person or get more info, or sometimes they call with a live person to begin with. I put on my ‘sexy’ low voice and say ‘hey baby, how you doin?’. They usually hang up immediately. If not my next response to whatever they say is ‘that sounds really hot, what are you wearing?’.
Pretty close to 100% hang up and don’t call back.
1. Bonus: once you know how long the script is you can do your nails or whatever and ignore them.
I got a call, started reeling off this massive script. Finished probably after 2 minutes of solid talking, and I politely sat through the whole thing.
I paused and said “… Sorry?”
She said “again” and started the whole script again from the start.
Another 2 minute solid talk-wall later, I said “… Sorry?”
This time, there was a bit of frustration in her voice. “AGAIN” and once again did the whole 2 mins again, aggressively this time.
“… Sorry?”
“fuck this” and the call ended.
I wish reasoning with these fools was simple, but of course it’s not – and you can’t just smile and say thank you the way you do to Jehovah’s Witnesses on your porch – so these tips just might be put into action!
Have you ever managed to get away from one of these calls? Tell us how you did it in the comments!
