That’s None Of Your Business

In my company, we often work from home. The company gave us each a cell phone that ties into the assistance call-in queue for our clients. The calls cycle through to the next available agent, etc. The number assigned to the phone is a regular cell number, but we don’t use them outside of client calls, so we always answer the phone, “Hello, [Company] Help Desk. This is [My Name]; how may I assist you?”

Recently, I’ve gotten more than one call that’s gone like this.

Me: “Hello, [Company] Help Desk. This is [My Name]; how may I assist you?”

Caller: “Hi, this is… uh… Wait. Who is this?”

Me: “This is the [Company] client Help Desk. How may I assist you?”

Caller: “Is… is this a business?”

Me: “Yes, it is.”

Caller: “Oh… never mind.” *Click*

After the second time this happened, I looked up the number that called and it had been flagged online as a scam. It turned out they were calling the number associated with the cell phone, not the company number. So, I guess I’ve found a new way of discouraging scammers: make them think they’ve called a business number.