Me: “Thank you for calling the service desk. This is [My Name].”

User: “Finally! Do you know how long we’ve been waiting?”

Me: “Seven minutes, fifty-three seconds.”

User: “No, it’s been an hour!”

Admittedly, depending on which helpline they called first, they could have been pushing buttons and gotten into a loop, but it’s less likely. The other main hotline users have access to is an HR line and they have about three options that will reroute to us due to password resets.

Me: “Which number did you call?”

User: “We’ve been waiting for an hour!”

I’m hanging out with friends when my phone rings. The number shows my area code but it isn’t a number I recognize. I decide to answer anyway.

Me: “Hello?”

Recorded Voice: “This is the Social Security Administration. Your social security number has been flagged for suspicious use.”

You know how the spiel goes. They’ll send out a warrant for my arrest, freeze my bank accounts, etc., unless I press a number to talk to an agent.

Scammer: “Social security office, how may I help you?”

Me: “I just got told my number has been flagged?”

Scammer: “Can I get your name?”

Me: “Yes, it’s Pat Bums.”

This is nowhere close to my name. My friends start cracking up, but I silence them so the “agent” doesn’t catch on.

Scammer: “All right, can you spell that for me?”

I spell it.

Scammer: “Thank you, Miss… ah… Bums. Can I get your social security number?”

Me: “Sure, it’s eight.”

There’s some silence.

Scammer: “Ma’am?”

Me: “Yes?”

Scammer: “I need your social security number to verify.”

Me: “Yes, it’s eight.”

Scammer: “The whole number?”

Me: “It’s the only one, yup!”

Scammer: “Ma’am—”

Me: “Oh, the big number!”

One of my friends has to leave the room as he’s laughing too hard.

Scammer: “Yes, ma’am, I need the whole social security number.”

Me: “Oh, yes, I remember! It’s twelve!”

Scammer: “Ma’am, this is a serious matter. If I cannot verify who you are, the arrest warrant may be issued.”

Me: “Sir, I’ll be honest. I’m not sure how you could arrest me.”

Scammer: “If your number was flagged—”

Me: “Sir, you know it’s illegal to impersonate a government employee?”

He hangs up. I set my phone down.

Me: “Next call, one of you guys is handling it.”

This story is part of the Phone Scam Payback roundup!

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I was interested in buying a new smartphone and saw an offer on the website of a mobile carrier. You had to buy the smartphone and then send a form before the limit date to receive a discount.

I bought the smartphone, sent the form, and waited. I received an email from the company saying that, unfortunately, we had sent the form too late.

What made me laugh? They answered before the limit date, so it could not be more obvious they were lying.

My mother wrote them an email threatening to call our country’s Fraud Service and they promptly gave us the discount.

I have worked for several years as a graphic designer at a sign shop. As we start to become more successful and well-known around town, we end up needing a second graphic designer to help us keep up with demand.

After a few interviews, the boss hires someone he feels will be a good fit. I won’t lie; they’re a better designer than I am and can put together ideas and concepts I can’t even fathom. However, the trade-off is that they’re slow. They’ll end up spending an entire day on one (great-looking) project, while we have thirty or more orders coming in each day.

Still, I can do things more basically but much faster, so I figure it’s an even trade. However, for whatever reason, the other designer has taken an almost instant dislike to me and takes every opportunity to complain to the boss about anything and everything I do.

This makes for an uncomfortable work environment, and eventually, I end up leaving the job to pursue other career opportunities out-of-province. At this point, the boss wants to hire someone to replace me, but the other designer tells him that I always slacked off and that they can easily handle the workload themselves, as they’ve essentially been doing so already.

When I am back in town six months later, I run into the boss and he begs me to come back. It turns out that the other designer was unable to keep up with the workload, started hiding files and leaving customers hanging, and eventually went on stress leave because it was all too much for them to take. They never returned to the job after their stress leave ended. I agreed to return for a hefty pay increase, and the next time I saw the former designer out in public, they went out of their way to avoid eye contact with me.

It’s been six years now, I’m still working there, and I haven’t once had any issues with the workload.

I am having the morning shift alone. A woman comes in with a bag of rice of a brand we sell that has been opened and is missing about a quarter of its contents.

Customer: “Hi! I bought this rice from you and there are tiny little bugs in it! I’d like to exchange it for a new bag, but I do not have a receipt.”

I am a little floored because the brand she has is very high quality and I never would have thought to hear about bugs inside rice. She is also extremely calm and friendly about it, which strikes me as odd since I am grossed out just thinking about it, especially since there’s so much of the rice missing already and it makes it seem like she ate it.

She has no receipt, which is an issue, and in the six months I’ve worked there I’ve never had to do a return or exchange so I don’t know how to do one.

I check the rice first and, truthfully, there are a few black, small bugs in it. Still alive!

Customer: “I come here very often, you know! I know your boss, too!”

Since we are a small store, we have a lot of regulars so this might actually be true. I’ve never seen her before, but I just nod along.

Customer: “I hoped the younger one would be here; she knows me!”

I am not sure what to do at this point, so I text my boss’s daughter; she’ll be taking over my shift in fifteen minutes anyway.

Me: “Should I just give the customer a new bag of rice? The customer insists you know each other.”

I send her a picture of the bugs. All through that, the woman keeps on talking, overly friendly. I am slightly suspicious but usually, scammers don’t agree with me when I offer to contact one of the bosses because they know it will not help them.

Customer: “Oh, if you want to, you can even take a picture of me and send it to her; she knows me! I shop here so often!”

My texts are answered, with lots of exclamation marks, telling me to NOT give that woman a new bag, that she does NOT know her, and that we cannot do anything without a receipt. The way she’s typing is very unusual, so I figure the woman is a scammer.

Me: *Smiling* “I will need a receipt, but if you wait for fifteen minutes, my colleague will be here and will be able to help you. I am just a part-timer and don’t have that much authority.”

She seemed disappointed but claimed she was in a rush and bought a new bag anyway, opening it and checking if there were bugs inside this one; there weren’t. She left the old bag with me and I made sure to give her the receipt, just in case. I taped the bug bag closed with way too much tape just as the boss’s daughter came in. I then left, thinking not much of it. 

The boss’s daughter told me on my next shift that the woman had come into the store the day before, claiming that her mother had bought that rice and they had found bugs in it. Since nothing could be done without a receipt, she left again. The boss even made sure to open every single bag of rice from that batch we got delivered; all were bug-free. The boss had not been working in the store for two months due to health reasons, and I asked the other part-timer about it, but she also did not sell that to the woman.

Either the boss sold the rice months ago and the bugs appeared because the woman didn’t store it right, or she bought it somewhere else in the first place. Since she changed tactics and adapted her story to be more believable on her second try with me, I wonder if she may have planted the bugs in there on purpose. 

Either way, I am baffled by her attempt to scam us, not because she was the first to try, but because she seemed so confident and insistent enough to try it twice — only to end up buying a new bag without fuss anyway.