Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
About a year ago as I was visiting California, my cell phone was stolen.
It took a tense week or so to make sure bank accounts, etc. were safe and to get a new phone.
Since then, however, my cell phone has plagued me with five or more junk calls a day.
They offer things I neither want nor need or that are too good to be true.
Usually they start with a commanding voice saying something like, “Attention!” or “Stop what you’re doing now!”
Then they offer to fix your credit score today or ship you up to $5,000 in cash with no credit check, or something equally ridiculous.
Those are easy. I pay attention to an uninvited solicitation and hang up before they can mention it, or I stop what I’m doing now to hang up.
Then I add their phone number to my blocked contact list. There must be about 1,000 numbers on it now.
Sometimes, however, it’s a live human being.
To warm themselves to you they’ll say something like, “Can you hear me? Tee-hee, I’ll adjust my headset…”
Then they’ll make an offer you can’t believe, like a week-long vacation on an exciting Pacific Island, or free car insurance, and expect you to fall for it.
I’m not even nice to these people. I either shout “Goodbye” in their ear as I hang up or choose from a menu of carefully chosen nautical terms.
I do feel bad for them. I picture them sitting in a windowless room in a basement somewhere and getting similar treatment from most of the people they call. Sometimes they live in India where they’re getting a rupee or two a day trying to speak English like Americans.
They may think they’re doing honest work, but to me they are aiding and abetting felons, because if the rip-offs they’re promoting aren’t criminal, they should be.
The business model seems to make 10 million calls, out of which 5,000 receivers might be dumb enough to send you money for which they’ll never receive value. That’s enough to pay all your expenses and walk away with ridiculous profits.
I would recommend rejecting any unsolicited sales call and even solicitations from charities. Ask for a phone number where you can call them. If they don’t provide it, in all likelihood it’s not a charity.
As for the people working the boiler room phones, I sincerely recommend they quit now and find real jobs.
Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at:
stevenmhansen
@plateautel.net