A while earlier I talked about my manners when talking with tele-marketers and how they have a habit of making me slightly unpleasant to deal with after a certain point (post here). Well, there is some people that can make me much more unpleasant to deal with than over zealous telemarketers and that is people who straight up are trying to lie to you over the phone in order to get information they are not entitled to. Earlier today as I was happily slaving away at my desk, doing my salaryman things I got a call transferred to me from another department being told that it was someone from my company's site in Göteborg, Sweden and that the name of the person was Knut (a very Swedish sounding name) and since I know a person by that name in the site who I sometimes need to talk to, I answered the phone in Swedish. After a few "hello?" in Swedish I realized that something might be wrong and switched to English and quickly got a reply. The conversation went something like this:
Sneaky Lying Bastard: (in a very non-Swedish slightly Indian accent) Hello, my name is Knut Svensson from Göteborg (both the name and city horribly mispronounced), I am currently at the Singapore airport and have lost my comp.... (interrupted by me)
Salaryman: No, you're not Knut!
S.L.B.: Well, I...
Salaryman: I know Knut and you're not him (a blatant lie from my side, but I knew he was lying to begin with)
S.L.B.: (surprisingly confidently) Yes, Knut is my manager
Salaryman: (aggressively) just a few seconds ago you introduced yourself as Knut Svensson!
S.L.B.: (assholish) maybe you have a hearing error because I'm not, he's my manager.
Salaryman: (still aggressive) fine, whatever, what's your name?!
S.L.B.: (quick recovery) Alan Steward... (again interrupted by me)
Salaryman: Yeah? Where's your office located?!
S.L.B.: (slightly shaken) well, now I'm at the airp.... (rudely interrupted)
Salaryman: No! I asked you where your office is located, where is your office located?!
S.L.B.: (meekly) Sweden...
Salaryman: (deceptively calm) uhu, ok, so you're Swedish?
S.L.B.: (confidently with no idea that he's walking right into the trap) Yes
Salaryman: So then you can speak Swedish?
S.L.B.: (unaware that the trap is snapping shut) ...yes...
Salaryman: (maliciously) Oh that's great, then we can speak Swedish instead, easier for both of us (switching to Swedish) jag tror minsann att du ljuger för mig?
S.L.B.: (Click)
I seriously do hate these people, they find out a name in the organization and present themselves as that person and do a shtick about having lost the computer and need contact information to the whole company to be able to call the people they need to call and they want it mailed to some gmail, hotmail or something. Basically they're straight up lying to you and what they're doing is borderline identity theft and I just wished we could trace them and have them put out of business...
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5 comments:
My favorite thing to do to telemarketers is act really, really interested and then say "do you mind if I take a cake out of the oven real quick? I'll be right back." You'd be shocked how long they'll sit there. The best thing I can do is cost them money...kvd
I've had several calls from financial institutions claiming they were referred to me (strangely they will never say who referred them), but never anything like this.
You should have asked for a phone number to call him back on. Maybe could have traced him through it.
Quite appropriate that he chose the name "Knut" though - it's very similar to the English word that I use to describe these people.
pity, not hate.
Karen - Wow, that sounds like a great idea! Especially with guys like this who are even worse than telemarketers and call from overseas, I could cost them quite a lot of money! But yeah, the cake thing might not work at work...
David - Yeah, but those guys are ok I think, headhunters usually asks people if they have anyone to recommend and people usually don't want to be identified as the person who gave out the name. Same goes for these offshore things.
jlpt2kyu - Well, these guys I do hate. Telemarketers and people who do it for a living I can pity, but not these blatant in your face identity theft liars...
i hate those type of scam emails. yahoo's fraud alert tells you how to trace the email. in the upper right corner of the email, there should be a link called header click on that and click on full header. that will show you every email address, and ip address of the sender. look up the ip address using ip lookup. just google the website. that will tell you if the email address is a proxy server and untraceable. it will tell you the country and city, as well as a isp provider of the sender. then copy all that information along with the original scam email and forward it to your email provider's fraud line. i don't know what you can do about phone calls at work. at home i live for caller id.XD
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