Solomon2
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A robo-caller wanted to know my credit card number. I quizzed him instead.
By John Kelly Columnist May 22 at 1:30 PM
Hello and welcome to another episode of “John Talks to the Robo-callers.”
As someone who often works from home, I get a lot of phone calls on my landline from people who want to take my money: duct-cleaning companies, solar power purveyors and “credit card services.”
Note the quotation marks on that last one. That’s because I don’t believe these callers provide a legitimate service. Last week I did what I usually do when a chipper recorded voice announces that pressing 1 will transfer me to someone who can lower my credit card interest rate: I pressed 1 and then told the person on the other end that I was a writer at The Washington Post.
[If the U.S. Government Grants Department calls you, hang up quickly. It’s a scam.]
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the person hangs up. But every now and then, I find someone who’s willing to talk. Last week I spoke with an articulate young man who declined to give his name but said he is 24 years old and has been doing the job for about two years. He lives in Pakistan, a fact he typically does not share with his potential “customers.”
“If I tell them I’m calling from Pakistan, at first they will shiver,” he said. “They will literally get scared.”
So you lie? I asked.
“Yes, we do have to lie sometimes,” he said. “You can say that, because I won’t get offended by accepting the reality. But I’ve done a lot of research on the business that I’m doing, a very common business.”
And that business is?
“Balance-transfer debt consolidation.”
Here’s how the Federal Trade Commission describes that business on its website: “These operations often charge cash-strapped consumers a large up-front fee, but then fail to help them settle or lower their debts — if they provide any service at all.”
My guy said his outfit charges 8 to 9 percent of the overall balance to put all of your debt on a zero-interest credit card. I don’t think there is such a thing, but even if there is, giving your credit card numbers and Social Security number to a stranger in Pakistan seems risky to me.
Maybe, he said, but people do it.
“Let’s suppose a person is drowning,” he explained. “If he sees a hand, he will grab it. He won’t care whose hand is that. Is that the hand of a dinosaur? He won’t care. He will just grab it.
I confess, I kind of liked this guy’s way of talking.
What about the fact, I said, that you say you are calling from a bona fide credit card company — his robo-call preamble said it was Visa — when you’re, well, you know, a guy in Pakistan?
“Most companies claim they are calling you from Visa card services or from the bank,” he said. “It’s simply a marketing technique to make the client satisfied, relaxed, so they think they’re dealing with a safe hand. If anyone calls me or you and the very first thing the person claims is to be a stranger or a third-party company, nobody is going to believe them.”
Well, he’s right about that.
He claimed to work with legitimate U.S. banks — he named several — but said if I called them, they would deny it.
How about the fact that robo-calls are themselves outlawed in the United States, as is spoofing, where the caller ID displays a fake number?
“Well, that’s a very good question,” he said. “Why do robo-calls exist? Don’t you think that the telecom companies in America — a superpower, a first-world country full of new technology — they cannot stop these kind of phone calls? Doesn’t that click your mind? . . . You guys have reached the moon, and you don’t have a solution for that technology?”
His point was that U.S. politicians and merchants allow this to happen, a claim I’ve heard before from foreign robo-callers. My guy likened it to an even more outrageous conspiracy theory.
“I don’t know if it is a rumor or not,” he said. “Medical companies who make medicine, first they make a virus, then they infect a certain area or certain amount of people.”
After that, he said, they sell the cure.
Do you really believe that? I asked.
“Well, after seeing most of the things nowadays going on, that makes me believe that,” he said. “You don’t know how low a human being can go.”
I think I have an idea.
My guy said he had trained as an electrical engineer. The credit card consolidation job paid well and allowed him to improve his “communications skills.”
But don’t you know that what you’re doing is a scam? I said.
“In some context, you can say that,” he said. “You know what is the difference between taking advantage or a scam? Both the things come in the bad category. I know that. We don’t do scams, though these companies take advantage.”
And with that, he bade me a polite farewell and went on to call someone else.
By John Kelly Columnist May 22 at 1:30 PM
Hello and welcome to another episode of “John Talks to the Robo-callers.”
As someone who often works from home, I get a lot of phone calls on my landline from people who want to take my money: duct-cleaning companies, solar power purveyors and “credit card services.”
Note the quotation marks on that last one. That’s because I don’t believe these callers provide a legitimate service. Last week I did what I usually do when a chipper recorded voice announces that pressing 1 will transfer me to someone who can lower my credit card interest rate: I pressed 1 and then told the person on the other end that I was a writer at The Washington Post.
[If the U.S. Government Grants Department calls you, hang up quickly. It’s a scam.]
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the person hangs up. But every now and then, I find someone who’s willing to talk. Last week I spoke with an articulate young man who declined to give his name but said he is 24 years old and has been doing the job for about two years. He lives in Pakistan, a fact he typically does not share with his potential “customers.”
“If I tell them I’m calling from Pakistan, at first they will shiver,” he said. “They will literally get scared.”
So you lie? I asked.
“Yes, we do have to lie sometimes,” he said. “You can say that, because I won’t get offended by accepting the reality. But I’ve done a lot of research on the business that I’m doing, a very common business.”
And that business is?
“Balance-transfer debt consolidation.”
Here’s how the Federal Trade Commission describes that business on its website: “These operations often charge cash-strapped consumers a large up-front fee, but then fail to help them settle or lower their debts — if they provide any service at all.”
My guy said his outfit charges 8 to 9 percent of the overall balance to put all of your debt on a zero-interest credit card. I don’t think there is such a thing, but even if there is, giving your credit card numbers and Social Security number to a stranger in Pakistan seems risky to me.
Maybe, he said, but people do it.
“Let’s suppose a person is drowning,” he explained. “If he sees a hand, he will grab it. He won’t care whose hand is that. Is that the hand of a dinosaur? He won’t care. He will just grab it.
I confess, I kind of liked this guy’s way of talking.
What about the fact, I said, that you say you are calling from a bona fide credit card company — his robo-call preamble said it was Visa — when you’re, well, you know, a guy in Pakistan?
“Most companies claim they are calling you from Visa card services or from the bank,” he said. “It’s simply a marketing technique to make the client satisfied, relaxed, so they think they’re dealing with a safe hand. If anyone calls me or you and the very first thing the person claims is to be a stranger or a third-party company, nobody is going to believe them.”
Well, he’s right about that.
He claimed to work with legitimate U.S. banks — he named several — but said if I called them, they would deny it.
How about the fact that robo-calls are themselves outlawed in the United States, as is spoofing, where the caller ID displays a fake number?
“Well, that’s a very good question,” he said. “Why do robo-calls exist? Don’t you think that the telecom companies in America — a superpower, a first-world country full of new technology — they cannot stop these kind of phone calls? Doesn’t that click your mind? . . . You guys have reached the moon, and you don’t have a solution for that technology?”
His point was that U.S. politicians and merchants allow this to happen, a claim I’ve heard before from foreign robo-callers. My guy likened it to an even more outrageous conspiracy theory.
“I don’t know if it is a rumor or not,” he said. “Medical companies who make medicine, first they make a virus, then they infect a certain area or certain amount of people.”
After that, he said, they sell the cure.
Do you really believe that? I asked.
“Well, after seeing most of the things nowadays going on, that makes me believe that,” he said. “You don’t know how low a human being can go.”
I think I have an idea.
My guy said he had trained as an electrical engineer. The credit card consolidation job paid well and allowed him to improve his “communications skills.”
But don’t you know that what you’re doing is a scam? I said.
“In some context, you can say that,” he said. “You know what is the difference between taking advantage or a scam? Both the things come in the bad category. I know that. We don’t do scams, though these companies take advantage.”
And with that, he bade me a polite farewell and went on to call someone else.
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