I’ve been wondering if the Telemarketing Scammers have been on to me. I haven’t gotten as many calls lately. And when I have they’ve been pretty quick to hang up on me. Here’s the one that happened today.
INT. PITTBSBURGH HOME – DAY
STEPH is watching TV and eating breakfast as the phone rings. MAV happens to be walking through the room. Steph answers the phone and hears a CALLER with a young voice and thick Indian accent on the other end o the line. She smiles and waves at Mav beckoning him over to the phone.
STEPH: Hello.
CALLER: Hello, this is Aja. I am calling from the Windows Computer and we are detecting some mysterious activity from your computer on our centralized server and…
STEPH: Oh, wait I think you want to talk to my husband.
CALLER: No ma’am. That is ok, if you will just go to the computer we can help you to…
STEPH: No, it’s on my husband’s computer. You need to talk to him about it. Hold on he’s right here.
Steph hands the phone over to Mav. The caller is still protesting as they make the exchange
CALLER: … and I’m sure that if you will simply go to the computer we can resolve this without involving him and…
MAV: Hello?
CALLER: Oh, uh… yes sir. Hello there. This is Aja, and I am calling from the Windows Computer. We are detecting some mysterious activity from your computer on our centralized server and…
MAV: Oh, I’m so glad you called. You can help me.
CALLER: Yes sir, we are here to help. Now if you could go to the computer….
MAV: Yeah, I’m there. I’m trying to hack Windows but I am getting some resistance. Can you help me?
CALLER: Sir?
MAV: Yes, I’m currently trying to hack you. Can you give me your password, it would be much easier to gain access if I had a…
CALLER: Fuck you, bitch! [CLICK]
MAV: Hello? Hello?!?
So yeah, maybe they’re training them better. I guess I could have eased into it a little slower. But there’s really no good way to go with the “I’m trying to hack you” angle. I do find it interesting that they really didn’t want to talk to the husband. To me this implies that the phishing manual says something like “if you get a woman on the phone keep her there instead of going to her husband because women are dumb and trusting and easier to hack.” The same logic that shady auto mechanics try to use, perhaps? Steph said that maybe we should get her an ear piece that I can feed her lines through for next time. I almost want to do that and then just go back to some of the earlier telemarketer theater ideas to see if people treat her differently.
Repeating some of the earlier ones? She might have a different measure of success with the phonesex one.
Reuven: Good point! But she’d never do it.
It would be interesting to see the different results between a male and a female caller as well.
I’ve never had a female caller from the Windows Computer. I would like to see how it differed. But it may not be possible if the Windows Computer doesn’t hire them.
Yeah, not only am I unwilling to do that, I would be bad at it. Mav, you should just work on your female impersonation. Watching Rupaul’s Drag Race will help.
I think that was your shortest call.
Shortest that I’ve bothered to post. There are some where the person never really bites at all and they dint make for a good story so I don’t blog about them.
Let me know when you succeed on having the Windows Computet, I left some nuggets in there for you to find
Let me know when you succeed on having the Windows Computet, I left some nuggets in there for you to find ?
That is interesting Mav. Do you think that you have never had a female scammer call is because the people running the scams don’t think a female would be taken as knowledgeable that someone would believe them enough to give them their info?
Joy: Oh, I’ve had female callers. Just none from “the Windows Computer.” I never really thought about it much before just now, but yes, I expect that’s part of it. My theory is since they’re not actually companies, they’re trying to maximize the scam to the abilities of the scammer. So if you have a guy who sounds Indian, you set him up with a scam from an IT call center. If you have a woman, you might try some other place that you feel like she might stereotypically fit into. For instance in this call here, she claimed to be presenting me with a prize: http://www.chrismaverick.com/wp/2014/03/05/12351/
I wonder if you could compile these into a book & call it a scammer training manual… you could perhaps have a whole NEW writing career on the side. Food for thought.
One, Mav, you should turn it into a book. And two, the ear piece idea would be awesome.
Awesome!
A thing to consider on the sexism angle: while he really didn’t want the phone to be passed to you it may not have been because he object to being “passed to the husband” so much as they don’t want to be passed off at all. By Steph saying that you were the one in charge of the computer she implied that both she believed his credentials and that she didn’t know much about it, both desirable qualities in a scam victim.
Their script/training has no idea who is going to answer the phone and is prepared no matter who it is. I’d expect that it tries to discourage getting other people involved since the more people are involved the more likely one will detect it as a scam.
Charlie: oh that’s certainly possible to. In reality, I’d assume it to be a combination of both factors.
Charlie: oh that’s certainly possible too. In reality, I’d assume it to be a combination of both factors.