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Six little digits

Technology advancement is wonderful. Thanks to the relentless focus on data as a valuable commodity there are many means of maintaining contact with friends, family, coworkers, businesses and advertisers that are based on acknowledged relationships between parties. As a result, the majority of the communication I engage in does not involve a conventional phone call.

Consequently, it was with great joy and anticipation that I answered my phone recently only to be greeted with a voice wanting to offer me access to an amazing investment opportunity! What a frabjous day it was turning out to be!

Of course, my joy was entirely a function of the fun I thought I was going to have. My expectations were met in this regard – I was very amused. 

Give me your number

Scammy calls of this nature always have a predictable, boring structure. For the purposes of giving an example, we shall call the lying, vindictive belligerent party in this scenario Scott Morrison.

Scott: Hello! Is this Ultimate Arsehole? I am from Dodgy As All Fuck Fake Investments and I have an amazing, fantastic opportunity for you! We have many happy investors and are eager to share the details of their success with you and help you reach your financial goals quickly and without any risk. Would you be interested in us sending you more details on our products?

At this point, there are many ways one could respond to useless pricks like Scott. Some of my favourites include:

  • Really? What are my financial goals specifically?
  • Can you provide me with a link to the ATO ruling that covers your product?
  • What’s your company’s ABN? The form on ScamWatch won’t let me submit reports without that.
  • What is the Morning Star rating on your product?
  • I only invest in mud wrestling promotions and brothels for livestock
  • Are your expense ratios calculated before or after deducting time lost to management masturbating and them praying for forgiveness for masturbating?

As the person in question was calling from an Australian number and was in fact calling an Australian number, I decided to try out a well-worn shortcut so I could get back to perfecting my masturbating-whilst-investing technique. I simply asked, “What is your organisation’s AFSL number?”

Hilarity ensues!

At this point, “Scott” started making a series of statement about as coherent as an inexperienced teenager in a barrel of Vaselined eels. 

Scott: Yes, I am from Dodgy As All Fuck Fake Investments – DAAFFI

UA: That’s interesting, and not even remotely an answer to my question. What is your Australian Financial Services License number?

Scott: Yes, we provide investment services.

UA: This really isn’t that hard. You’re selling financial services, and to do so you need to possess an AFS License – I ask again, what is your AFSL number?

Scott: The numbers for returns on investment are only available to customers.

UA: I’m sorry, but do you have some difficulties with comprehension or basic English? I’ve asked a simple question, and you either need to give me the requested answer or admit that you’re engaging in a scam.

At this point, I really thought this person would cut their losses and go dial a bogan named Keith or Theo. How wrong and amused I was….

Scott: Our number is 612 8103 4313.

At this point, one should probably have two pieces of information:

  1. An AFSL number is generally 6 digits long.
  2. “61” is the Country Code for Australia as allocated by the ITU

I could scarcely believe it myself – Scott had somehow decided to give me a phone number to satisfy my request for actual credentials. At this point, I laughed so hard that one of my cats attacked one of my feet, the local neighbourhood nutter complained about the noise and I learned about the effect of mineral water and saliva on Razer’s green keyboard switches. Scott was not impressed by the remainder of my response:

UA: That’s a phone number. In fact, it’s the phone number that was presented before I answered this call. Do you have an AFSL number or not?

Scott: Our address is on Pitt Street in Sydney…

At this point, I decided that I was overdue for my third wank of the evening and decided to wrap this fuckery up.

UA: Again, that statement has precisely nothing to do with my question. Do you know that you’re participating in a scam Scott or are you a victim like the Keiths, Nigels and Teeshans that you spout this fuckery at? 

Scott: <click>

TL;DR: Scammer is asked for a license number – provides their phone number in response. Was amusing, would repeat.

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Telemarketers 1

Telemarketers are amazing creatures. They somehow come to work, talk to people for hours at a time and manage to engage in either politeness or ignorance in response to rejection.

If some person is calling you and attempting to sell a service or product to you, they owe you plenty of courtesy. Of course, telemarketers are not typically assessed based on their manners and it falls to an Arsehole like me to remind them that they’re talking to the people who justify their employment.

With that all stated, I hereby present a series on an approach to handling telemarketers. If I ever publish this as a stand-alone text, I suspect the title may simply be “Fuck ’em”.

Hold them accountable immediately

Should you receive a call from some company you have no current relationship with, the immediate response to their overly manicured greeting should be simply, “Is this a sales call?”

This inevitably results in one of three outcomes:

  • Yes, this is a sales call. Would you like to spend $2,500 on something that no one would ever want to buy so I can be paid a bonus of about Tree Fiddy and fend off the succubus that inhabits my cupboard?
  • No, I just want to give you a competitive quote on your electricity/gas/life insurance/mortgage/car insurance/internet. Note: If anyone ever uses the term “your internet” or “my internet”, they need to be taken outside and forced to watch Tony Abbott wearing speedos until they decide to get smarter.
  • There is no sale here. I am just conducting a free survey!

Taking these in turn:

Telemarketers who are honest in stating that they’re trying to sell you something deserve a polite “not interested” response. Should they continue to insist, they deserve to be taken outside behind the nearest barn and forced to trim a diseased Warthog’s labial growths with their teeth and you should tell them such.

Telemarketers that lie to you deserve to be completely and totally eviscerated mentally. If a specific percentage discount is mentioned, demand that they tell you exactly what you’re paying now and when they inevitably fail to do so call them out on their lies and demand to speak to their manager due to their reprehensible conduct. Should they make statements about rate reductions or excellent deals, demand that the details of said reductions or deals be stated up front and question their integrity and intelligence when they inevitably ask you for details of your current arrangements.

Free survey? From which observation point?

The last point is most interesting – the so called “free” survey. What sort of mental midget looks at a survey advertised as “free” and wants in? Urinating into one’s own mouth and/or nostril is free, however the price does not serve as a promotional point for anyone who has control of their bladder and/or higher brain functions.

Should any knobber offer you a survey over the phone, there is only one response that is appropriate: How will I be compensated for my participation?

The reply to this will inevitably involve statements that show either a complete inability to understand basic conversational English or a total disregard of the question stated. Words such as “but it is free”,  “there is no charge to you” or (my personal favourite) “it will only take a few minutes” are all statements showing a complete disregard for your time.

The person calling you is most likely compensated for their time. The systems enabling their communication with you are definitely being paid for. This means that someone has decided that the information being collected has value – why should you give some rabbit smuggler something of value for free?

In summary if someone calls you in their professional capacity when you have no relationship with them or their employer, the person deciding the terms of the interaction is you. Hold them accountable and disregard their script and fuckery.

 

 

 

 

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I know UA personally…..

In this particular Arsehole’s day-to-day job, my beloved colleagues regularly get calls of the following formats:

  • Please put me through to the Arsehole. They are expecting my call! (I’m not)
  • I need to speak to the Arsehole as I am following up on an e-mail I sent them (They haven’t sent me a thing).
  • I am calling the Arsehole back, I did not get their number. (Not remotely true).
  • I know the Arsehole personally. You must put me through! (Then they should call me directly – I’m not hard to find).
  • I need to speak to the Arsehole now! No, I don’t want their e-mail address! Give me their mobile number!

As my most excellent colleagues were part of the inspiration behind this site, I thought their inappropriate abuse deserved appropriate chronicling.

One particular company sent their own staff and multiple call centres staffed by complete dog molesters a task of somehow getting a hold of me. The company in question claims to be an e-mail management specialist provider. How exactly all aggressors thought that e-mail or any other electronic means of communication was below them affords me confusion and amusement, similar to seeing someone attempt to use a bunch of constantly-rejected coins to get a Mars Bar out of a card reader-equiped vending machine whilst holding their MasterCard so they can order flowers for their girlfriend they’ve consistently disappointed and lied to whilst focusing on entirely the completely wrong fucking thing.

After over 40 (an honestly conservative estimate) attempts to make contact and a refusal of the callers to make appointments, provide callback numbers, send e-mails, give full details or give my colleagues the courtesy of even ending calls with something remotely resembling courtesy, I decided that this completely rapacious conduct must be fixed.

I wrote to Mute Performer Concert via their completely inept online contact form, with the following words (slightly paraphrased to protect those with sensibilities):

Dear sods,

Your organisation has made constant, unwelcome phone calls to my employer and has wasted hours of time whilst engaging in rude, unprofessional conduct and providing an impression of your company that would surely see anyone deciding to engage your services needing to be committed to a psychiatric ward.

I expect a written apology to be provided to my colleagues and a written confirmation provided that we will no longer be contacted by your poorly educated staff and agents.

Sincerely,

Ultimate Arsehole

This is a wonderful example of a zero sum game. Should I receive no response, I would have basis for pushing the issue further (and I do have the contact details for the Australian GM). Should I receive any response, I suspected that it would be inadequate and provide basis for further escalation.

One day I would really like to see a case of a company taking ownership for such conduct and just stating facts. In this case, I was completely disgusted. I received a phone call from some bloke named after a scientific term, who engaged in the following attempts at conversation:

  • An attempt at promoting the current work of his organisation, completely ignoring what had been written.
  • Stating that there must have been some sort of e-mail error when the details I sent through were provided to him, and then completely disregarding the concerns I expressed about the inability of the company to do what they were claiming to be able to do given this example.
  • Massive minimisation of the conduct of the staff and agents retained by the company, disregarding their rudeness and extremely poor conduct as “slightly aggressive”
  • Attempts to “rescue” the conversation to get a sale, attempting to redirect concerns toward “synergies”.
  • Hanging up on me

At this point, I followed up via e-mail to this particular trained idiot and, much to my amazement, received the following:

Dear Arsehole,

I sincerely apologise for the conduct of our organisation. Please be assured that we will cease contacting you and apologise deeply for the extremely poor conduct we have displayed in our interaction with your colleagues.

The fact that our staff and agents did not show the Reception and Administrative staff in your organisation is unacceptable and we will be sure to record this as the basis for you excluding us from future interactions with your organisation.

Regards,

Trained Idiot named after part of a Scientific Model

And with that, The Old Man Triumphs! Victory!