DISCLAIMER: This story contains content of a legal nature. It is not intended as legal advice.
I keep getting calls about selling my home. My home is not on the market and hasn’t been since I bought it, so these are completely unsolicited calls. At one point, the calls were coming weekly, every Saturday or Sunday. It was always the same company calling and always the same woman calling as well — or the women calling always gave the same company name and the same name for themselves. Eventually, I got tired of telling them off every weekend. I tried blocking the number, but they kept calling with different numbers.
Finally, I tried a different tactic. It was Saturday, and my phone rang with an unknown number on the caller ID.
Me: “Hello?”
Woman: “Good morning. May I speak with [My Name], please?”
Me: “That entirely depends on who you are.”
Woman: “My name is [Woman], calling from [Company]. We have been trying to reach him about the property at [my address].”
Me: “Oh, yes. You are the one who has been calling me weekly, even after I told you I wasn’t interested in selling my home.”
Woman: “Yes, I was calling to see if you would consider selling the property.”
Me: “You know what? Sure. My price is firm at $1.3 million.”
The house is worth about $300,000, on a good day.
Woman: “Well, for a price that high, I will need to speak to my boss.”
Me: “You do that. And don’t call this number again unless you are ready to offer that amount or higher.”
With that, we hung up, and I thought that would get them to leave me alone. The next weekend came and went, and I didn’t get a call from that company, so I believed they had gotten the message. I was wrong.
The weekend after that, two weeks after the last call, the company called me again. On Saturday morning, my phone rang with an unknown number.
Me: “Hello.”
Woman: “Good morning. May I please speak with [My Name]?”
Me: “Only if I know who you are.”
Woman: “Of course. My name is [Woman], and I’m calling on behalf of [Company]…”
Me: “Wonderful! You must be ready to pay my price!”
Woman: “Um, uh, I was calling about the property at [my address], to see if you were ready to sell.”
Me: “Yes, I know. I spoke to you two weeks ago, gave you a price, and told you to only call if you were ready to pay that price. I can only assume, since you are calling me back, that your company is ready to meet the price. I was clear that it was a firm price, so I know that you don’t intend to negotiate.”
Woman: “I don’t have any notes about an offer or price…”
At that point, I remembered something important: I had an app on my phone that recorded all my calls. I had put it on my phone when I had to get into a drawn-out fight with an insurance company, which is a story for another day, but I had never deleted it.
Me: “Don’t worry about that; I have evidence of what I said.”
Woman: “We never sent anything to you with an offer…”
Me: “I am aware of that. You see, I record all my phone calls and I saved the recording of that call two weeks ago, including both my price and my instructions to not call until you wanted to match that offer.”
Woman: “And what was that number, sir?”
Me: “$1.3 million.”
Woman: “We would not pay that much for your property, sir.”
Me: “That’s a shame. This call would be evidence of harassment, then.”
Woman: “I’m not sure what you mean, sir.”
Me: “Well, if you aren’t calling to accept my offer, then you must be calling to try and harass me into lowering my price. Pretty sure that’s a felony.”
Woman: “We would do no such thing.”
Me: “And yet I have these recordings that would imply otherwise.”
Woman: “You didn’t tell me I was being recorded, so you can’t use that.”
Me: “Actually, I can. See, if you double-check my address, you’ll see that I live in the Commonwealth of Virginia, which only requires single-party consent, and I consented. That means that not only is it not a crime to record you, but my recordings can be used in both criminal and civil trials. So, who will be paying the $1.3 million? I should mention that I will only accept secured funds, like cash or a bank transfer.”
Woman: “We will not be paying anything like that! That is far too much money for your property!”
Me: “I’ll make you a deal, then: you never call me again, and I don’t take your company to court for breach of contract for calling and then backing out of the amount previously discussed.”
Woman: “You can’t do that!”
Me: “Try me, I dare you.”
With that, she hung up on me. So far, it’s been six months without getting another call from them. For the record, aside from Virginia being a single-party consent state for recording phone calls, I have no idea if anything that I said about contracts or harassment was true; please don’t take it as legal advice. But it seems to have scared them off for now.
