How I deal with telemarketers and put dollar bills in my pocket. (1 Viewer)

[chkmte]

About a month ago a reporter from KAKE in Witchita, KS interviewed me regarding my success in dealing with telemarketers. I guess the clip ran a couple of weeks ago. Here is a link to that story. Note: For the report I go by Timothy Paul; also the article didn't exactly characterize my statements completely accurately.

 

[FiveThous]

Any tips? And congrats, nice score!

 

[chkmte]

Any tips? And congrats, nice score!

I've got lots of tips. It's legit, but it takes a significant amount of patience, dedication, organization...and an extra helping of moxy. It's sometimes difficult to track these cats down. I have two larger lawsuits pending...and those should add some zeros to the ole kitty before the end of year.

 

[waddadonk]

How many robocalls do you get? Landline or mobile? When did you start tracking?

 

[chkmte]

@waddadonk I used to get 4-5 robocalls/day. I have two lines, one is VOIP and the other is mobile. I started tracking on Thanksgiving of last year. In Jan I hadn't brought in any settlements, but in Feb I brought in $9k, and March I brought in $1k.

 

[mtl mile end]

My favourite ever telemarketing call revenge was an audio file that made the rounds on Facebook about twelve years ago. The guy answered the call and pretended to be a homicide investigator standing over the body of the victim whose landline the telemarketer had called. He started to interrogate the telemarketer like he was a suspect. He said the victim was gay and he was very interested in the male caller who had just called the dead man's phone. It went on for a while and was absolutely brilliant. It just kept getting worse and worse for the guy. Every statement the telemarketer made was twisted into a suspicious statement about the victim and his gay lover(s) (kind of like a real police interrogation).

Living in Canada, I doubt that I could earn cold hard cash, but I've often considered the whole homicide detective routine.

 

[tulkas]

link please, lol.

e: found it ↦

 

[mtl mile end]

Thank you. It was a trip down memory lane.


EDIT: from Wikipedia - " In December 2013, Mabe created a prank video, intended to discourage driving under the influence, in which he and several accomplices convinced a mutual friend with a history of multiple DUIs that he had just awoken from a 10-year coma resulting from a drunk driving accident. It became a viral video, earning over 28 million views on youtube by October 2017. "

 

[K ALL IN 9]

There's a guy on YouTube (kitboga) that live streams himself trying to waste as much of a scammers time as he can. The oriringal streams sometimes go on for hours but he cuts the youtube videos down. But I'm drunk and idk where I'm going with this

 

[auto]

link please, lol.

e: found it ↦

Lol. That was funny! I needed that laugh.

 

[trigs]

Interesting. I always liked the culture jamming way of dealing with telemarketers. Just say, "I'm interested, but give me a minute." Then just put the phone down without hanging it up. Telemarketer then sits there waiting and stops calling people.

 

[CraigT78]

Congratulations.
I read the article, but for me - Ain’t nobody got time for that.

 

[tulkas]

I answer, “Langley, special agent Smith speaking”. When they hesitate I immediately say, “Hello, hello? Who is this and how did you get *this* number?”. The cognitive dissonance I hear on the other end of the phone is worth the call.

 

[WedgeRock]

I answer, “Langley, special agent Smith speaking”. When they hesitate I immediately say, “Hello, hello? Who is this and how did you get *this* number?”. The cognitive dissonance I hear on the other end of the phone is worth the call.

Will this work on my mother-in-law?

 

[BarrieJ3]

I don’t answer the phone these days, there’s not a person that calls me that doesn’t set up the call previously. It’s all text and email.

Amazing how just a phone call has become the new “pop in” for me.

 

[trigs]

I don’t answer the phone these days, there’s not a person that calls me that doesn’t set up the call previously. It’s all text and email.

Amazing how just a phone call has become the new “pop in” for me.

Same for me. I never answer the phone. No one except my parents call me and they usually text first.

 

[DeeVee8]

 

[T_Chan]

I wish I had the luxury of not picking up the phone. I get calls from everywhere all times if the day and usually 2 or more robocalls daily.

 

[Josh Kifer]

I've gotten 15 calls or texts in the last week to sell my house. I'm about to start doing whatever juju I can to punish these jackoffs.

 

[chkmte]

I've gotten 15 calls or texts in the last week to sell my house. I'm about to start doing whatever juju I can to punish these jackoffs.

That could be $1500/per call. I would do something about that.

 

[Schmendr1ck]

I've gotten 15 calls or texts in the last week to sell my house. I'm about to start doing whatever juju I can to punish these jackoffs.

I got one of these texts for the first time a few months ago. I almost fell for it because they addressed me by name, and I'm careful about giving out my cell number, but after a little thought I decided to ignore it.

I got two more with the exact same wording over the next few days, then they stopped.

 

[gopherblue]

Anyone get the email where they tell you they have your password (usually correct, albeit long since retired, and from some rando website that was hacked like 15-20 years ago and for which you used a throw-away password), and they say they've commandeered your computer's webcam and have compromising video of you doing naughty things, and will send it to all your facebook contacts, but they'll forget about it if you send them bitcoin?

No? Yeah, me neither.

But the lolz part was that my computer doesn't have a webcam (yes, I am THAT paranoid and have been since the advent of webcams, and even specifically order laptops without them). So, there's that.