The Australian Phone Company

There are days when a good laugh is welcomed. Others when the need for novelty leads one to explore the heretofore ignored bizarre. Today was both.

I've been ignoring a multitude of recent phone calls labeled "Scam Likely" coming in to my cell phone. But today was a "what the heck?" kind of day. It had the same area code my cell has, and I can pretty much guarantee any incoming calls I want to hear from with that code are already in my directory. But like I said....

After two hellos, a bit of static came on the line, followed by a voice purporting to be from some Australian phone company. She was doing me the wonderful service - on a Sunday, no less, when everybody does their business because, why not? - of informing me that my land line (lordy, how many years since I've had one of those?) service was to be disconnected due to late payment. (Ahem: I stay ahead on my phone bill, not just current. Always.) I could fix that, of course, just by... garbled couple seconds... and punching "1" to connect with their technician....

Let's see, can you count all the things wrong in that one minute spiel? I haven't even mentioned yet her horrible quasi-Australian accent, or grammar quirks. Nor why they would be operating in the US, or calling somebody with a Minneapolis area code because - I suppose - they found a way to imitate or secure a phone number with the same area code. And presuming they wanted money, why should I believe a technician would be the type of employee to fix a monetary problem for me?

Really, how stupid do people have to be to fall for all this nonsense?

It was tempting, it really was, to play along for a few minutes, punch 1, pretend fear over the threats for as long as I could stand it, and then give them an earfull of just how idiotic they were being. But then I reconsidered. If I gave them any tips at all of what they needed to fix, they might just go and do it. And just maybe the next poor sucker would fall for the new improved version.

No thanks. Better to just save it for one of those rainy day stories, something to haul out of the dusty brainpan for another quiet chuckle.