Click Bait

I got a new phone, and it blew up with calls from debt collectors. Most people can just send unknown callers to voicemail. I, unfortunately, worked tech support for a large company at the time, so I had to answer every call.

I’ll spare you the details of how annoying those folks are. “Very” should suffice. And I got tired of it pretty darn quick. I put up with it as long as I could, but then something broke. I needed to f*** with these a**holes, inasmuch as it was possible and legal to do so.

Mostly, I just wasted as much of their time as I could. But for the really annoying ones, I had a routine that I developed over the course of about a year.

Dunner: “Is this Joe Debtor?”

Me: “Is this about the unpaid phone bill from 2010?”

Dunner: “Yes. Mr. Debtor, are you going to pay—”

Me: “—Hang on a sec. I never said I was your dude. I work with him, though. He sold me this phone a couple of weeks ago and told me I might be getting a few of these calls. Listen, could you please just call him directly? I can give you his new address and phone number, and the phone for our HR department if you want that too.”

Dunner: “That would be wonderful. Thank you!”

Me: “Are you ready to write this down? It’s—” *Click!*

Invariably, they’d call back, thinking I had just accidentally disconnected. I’d say something like:

Me: “Sorry. Cell coverage sucks around here. I apologize. Do you still want me to—” *Click!*

You’d be surprised how many times they’d try again. I answered, and pretended to accidentally hang up, every single time.

They all eventually figured it out. Not before getting REALLY ANGRY though.