I'm talking about Overstock.com
This morning I received a phone call from them on my cell phone. I have a disposable, hardly used- I have over 500 minutes two weeks before I have reload the phone again to keep it running- cell that I have given the number out only rarely.
Overstock calls me with a song and a dance about my scheduled payments not going through due to some error I made when I set up my account for payments online. (I did it about 2 months ago.) The company wanted me to give them my bank info so they could process a payment right away.
How stupid are these people?
1- No phone number showed on my cell's caller ID to tell me who was calling me.
2- Even if one did show, in these days of phone number spoofing, I wouldn't give out personal information to anyone who first called me. My ID was stolen some time back.
A company has to be really lacking in brain matter if they think people will give out bank info just because they call the customer up.
Some other things that are irksome from today's experience
1- Overstock sends me lots of email soliciting me to buy what they sell but can't bother to send me a email saying there was a problem with my account for the last month. How much is lots? I've gotten 11 emails from Overstock in the last week. My wish is I could get a dollar for each of these and I think last week was slow.
2- The customer service person of today's phone call hung up on me while I tried checking online if there was a problem. Rude plus dumb customer service.
My bank account information I had entered was wrong. I fixed it. Don't ever give out bank or personal information over the phone unsolicited.
Comments
Overstalk
The caler probly was a haker I got a call about microsoft asking me too get in frount of my computer,at that point I sead I dont think so and hung up. Got anuther call a bout cable service from some privider I never heard of.
Scams
There seems to be a very large number of phone scams these days. Any legitimate company would recognize that and be will to either have you call them back or go to their (known) website to resolve the problem.
I recommend never giving credit card or bank information to someone unless you placed the call to them at a phone number you know belongs to the company (get it from a snail mail correspondence or their website).
I've gotten a number of calls from people with Indian accents who claim they are calling from something like the "Windows Technical Department". I immediately ask them the name of their company (if they are calling about Windows it should be Microsoft), how they got my number, which of my computers they are calling about, which version of Windows am I running, etc.
Most of them haven't got a clue what I'm talking about.
Best solution is to just hang up on them.
Better still, if we can convince the US government that these crooks are using these calls to fund terrorism, they might use a drone to send a missile through the window of their call center.
Michelle B
not just the US
I've had three different scammers on the phone today.
One about a non existant car accident I am supposed to have had
One about a supposed problem with my broadband connection with TalkTalk
and one about a supposed virus on my Windows Desktop.
I don't use TalkTalk
I've not had a car accident since 2009
And I would not use windows even if you paid me to.
Oh, and any bank worth anything would not call you to ask you to confirm your details.
I've had great fun over the years giving out false details for bank accounts, credit cards and other things.
Take care out there and don't get sucked into a scam no matter how reasonable it sounds.
Samantha.
Whenever...
they tell me it's a problem with my computer, I tell them to hold on while I get the "computer guy." Then, I do my best impression of The Simpson's Apu. I ask them what kind of problem are they having with their computer. I keep telling them I can help them. This is so far off their script that I get extended periods of silence. Sometimes they start responding in a foreign language. Most of the time they hang up. It's fun!
~And so it goes...
Good thing
Good thing I'm not in the room with you when you do that! I'd laugh so hard I'd need to change undies. :)
I used to work with a guy who sounded like Apu and he knew it, he had a sly sense of humor but not everyone knew when he was sending them up. I had to leave the room more than once. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Probably not who they said they were
I don't think that was overstock, sounds like a scam of some sort. If I don't see a number in my display, I don't talk to nobody. And while I'm answering, I'm looking up the number I do see online.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I'd love to do that
however, here in the UK many NHS Trusts withhold their numbers on outgoing calls. They say that it is for Patient Confidentialty.
They say that it could be embarrasing for someone to get a call about some private medical problem only for their relatives to be able to dial 1471, get the number and find out who called their family member.
It wrankles me because quite often the caller does not leave a message that includes a phone number so that I can call them back. Again Patient Confidentiality is sites.
This is just a cop out.
Then they wonder why people get frustrated and angry with them... Sheesh.
End of rant.
Overstock?
The chances of that guy being from Overstock are Slim and None, and Slim just left the building. He was most likely a phone phisher.
PS: I would email Overstock and let them know this happened.
I want
In on the fun!
However i'm so far under the radar I hardly get any duff email let alone phone calls - last one was about ten years ago!
Madeline Anafrid Bell
You would be surprised how gullible people can be
I had the same phone number for 20+ years until I relocated. It was very close to the switchboard number for the local J.C. Penney department store. I got several calls a month from people with questions about their accounts; they would leave their name, phone number and account number on my voice mail. I got all kinds of customer service calls- usually about deliveries or in home services and once found a voice mail from the police department asking for a security video that showed a crime on progress.
Scammers rely on people's gullibility. If people won't listen to an outgoing message and realize they mis-dialed, they are just as likely to believe that the scammer calling them is legitimate.
I'm on the telemarketer do not call list so when I get those calls, I know they are scammers. Most of them are caught by nomorobo (a filtering service) and the ones that get through, I usually let go to voice mail. There are times when I have the time to screw around with them, and I will answer the call using an official sounding agency name (innerstate regional fraud task force, telemarketing fraud hotline, coastal region fraud investigative service, etc.) and play head games with the caller for a couple of minutes, ask them to hang on for a moment and, in a muffled voice, say " hey Jackson, have you got the trace completed? Another two minutes? okay I'll see if I can string him along a while longer." at which point the scammer usually has hung up. If not, I go back to the scammer, play more games and then announce we have your location and the appropriate local agencies have been notified of your activities. Have a good day. Then I hang up and report the number to nomorobo.
What can I say, it is cheap entertainment, I'm easily amused and however long I keep the scammer on the line, he isn't scamming someone else.
The sad thing
Up until now the email version of this with a request to update my customer info at the link provided have gone straight into the spam folder automatically. But just the other day one made it through the filters purporting to be from a national chain that just so happens to have a local store. So I stopped in to report it directly to them. I talked to the store manager only to find out they (the chain) had actually sent the email! I requested removal from their records immediately and mentioned that anybody that responded should be placed in a special "dumbass" file! I won't say what chain it was but I've decided that I'd be best off buying from another store. ;-)
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
Check out Tom Mabe on youtube.
He is hell on wheels on telemarketers and phishers!
Catherine Linda Michel
As a T-woman, I do have a Y chromosome... it's just in cursive, pink script.
I get these calls all the time
Latest one is some woman who always drops her headset and excuses herself for it at the beginning of the call. Then she goes on about how I have stayed at their resorts in the past (NOT) and offers me a Caribbean vacation.
Now the funny part of this is I get the call on the cell phone given to me and registered to my employer, which of course I only use for work reasons and never for personal calls (that's why I have my own personal cell phone right?)
Now having spent a very large portion of my younger life living in the Caribbean I am familiar with many of the islands. So I let her go on about the resorts I can stay in, then start asking if I can book a stay in the resort in Dry Tortugas or the one on Marquesas (one is a national park the otehr is a wildlife refuge) and she goes on about how that yes they have 5 star hotels in both places that I could stay at.
Usually by this time I am laughing so hard at the stupidity of the person on the phone I have to hang up.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
We changed our number
My wife and I decided to change our number to an unlisted one because we were tired of the crank calls.
Sequential numbering
At least some of those systems dial numbers in sequential order, 555-4000, 555-4001, 555-4002, etc. They are supposed to be programmed with the Do Not call Registry (DNR or maybe DNC list) but it costs money to update the software everytime a new list comes out. So they'll dial pretty much any number, doesn't matter if its a landline, cellphone, or an unlisted number.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
Rule One
Never, EVER give out ANY information to an unsolicited caller. I usually excuse myself (potty break, etc.), then ask for a number where I can call them back. When I call them back (after checking the REAL NUMBER for their "service"), I either play angry father or detective, police chief, etc., and give them a fake name & badge number. I do, however, give them the REAL NUMBER for the local fraud unit of the police, just in case they're stupid enough to check my info out... You'd be surprised how many disposable cells are used by these crooks, and how stupid they can be at times... Not to brag, but one time, I even scammed the scammer into giving me HIS info, by telling him I also worked for company 'X", and I'd be glad to share some (totally bogus) leads with him, but my supervisor needed his info to release the info. Greedy bastard fell for it hook, line, and sinker, and the FCC got a nice, anonymous tip...
*Kisses Always*
Haylee V