Scam-a-lot

Working from home I have come to realise how often the 'phone rings during the day. When I say 'phone', I mean one of these...

...which the younger generations find a) hilarious and b) confusing. They might find one of these even more hilarious and confusing...

...but this was the style of phone I remember from my childhood in the 60s and 70s. Added to that, we had a party (shared) line with my grandparents who lived across the road and sometimes you would pick up the receiver to make a call and hear someone on the party line, so you'd replace the receiver gently (no, you would NOT listen in to the conversation!) and try again later. Can you imagine that situation these days, when people are so impatient and want everything to happen NOW? Sheesh. Young people don't know they are born, do they, with their mobile contraptions glued to their hands 24/7, everything happening in the instant? It seems to be an increasingly rare thing, too, to have a landline in your home. But Himself and I do, because we are old-fashioned, or rather I am old fashioned and besides, my own mobile phone doesn't work at home so I rarely use it. In fact, to give you an idea of how Luddite I am about mobile phones, I topped mine up with £20 the day before we moved form Kent to Shropshire and that was 3 years, 4 months and 4 days ago and I STILL haven't used up that credit!
Where was I? Oh yes, daytime phone calls. There is one pretty much every day and sometimes two. Occasionally they are interesting or personal, but mostly they are scam calls. They will fall into two categories - ones that are automated, where a robotic voice tells me that something TERRIBLE has occurred with my bank/ internet/ credit card/ Amazon account and I must press button 1 IMMEDIATELY in order to rectify the PROBLEM that has occurred, lest my entire life falls to pieces. Personally, I feel these automated calls lack imagination and play-value because all you can do is sigh with the weariness of it all and hang up. No potential for interaction at all. The ones I really enjoy are the ones with a proper talking person on the other end.

When I say 'enjoy' it depends on how my day is going. Sometimes it is annoying to dash and answer  the phone to a scam call, especially if I am in the writing zone, or making pastry, or having a tinkle in the wee shop. I'm not very conversational in these circumstances. I usually sigh loudly, say 'Oh for goodness' sake...' and hang up and return to my previous activity. However, if I am tiddling around with housework or reading something particularly boring but necessitating of my attention e.g an insurance policy or the Labour Party Manifesto (HA!) I am more than happy to listen to their spiel.

Predictable spiel, of course. They are generally calling from BT or Amazon or HMRC or my bank or internet provider (they NEVER get my bank or internet provider correct - weird that, huh?) and they ALWAYS say how concerned and sorry they are that my security (they never say what aspect of my security - emotional, physical, Tena lady?) has been compromised which I find rather touching.

The fun of the game with these scam callers is to persuade them away from their script. Generally they start by saying, 'Am I speaking to the account holder?' I respond with one of the following:

• you should know, you made the call
• you have reached a security line. Please input your personal PIN code now to continue the call
• WAYNE! Put that knife down NOW!
• no, my evil guardian will not allow me to manage my financial affairs until I come of age
• yes

Obviously, only one of these is the correct scripted response. But it is up to me how I want to play the game.

The next step is them trying to persuade me to log onto my laptop/ computer/ mobile device in order to rectify the 'problem'. Again, I have a selection of responses:

• I'm already logged in! I'm watching re-runs of 'Last of the Summer Wine.' Have you ever seen 'Last of the Summer Wine?' You should! It's HILARIOUS! Every week one of the main characters sits in a runaway wheelbarrow and careers out of control down a hill towards either a wall or a river. I LOVE guessing which one it's going to be...'
• I'm doing it now. And then I start making tapping noises with my nails on the kitchen worktops and start huffing and complaining about the internet connection or pretending to get distracted by a pop-up advert telling me I've won a Samsung Galaxy and all I need to do it click the link, but it looks odd, like a SCAM, do you think I should do that?
• A mobile device? You mean, like a pushchair?

Once we are 'logged in' the scammer (I shall call them that because that is what they are) gives me a list of instructions which I pretend to follow. They ask me what I can see on the screen. Usually, I am impressed if they have stuck with me so far so I give them a list of interesting options:

• Numbers. Lots of numbers. Only they AREN'T numbers, do you know what I mean?
• A screen shot from the original 'Mary Poppins' film. Of Dick Van Dyke with his pants round his ankles dancing with penguins.
• Oh stupid me! That's my microwave, not my laptop...doh...ahahahahahaha!
• Nothing. I've been tapping on my kitchen worktop all along. It's wood. There's not much else to see.

I have to say that at this point my attention is usually waning. Luckily, the caller, if persistent, continues to ask me questions and my single response is, 'Why should I tell you anything. You are a scammer. Are you proud of being a scammer, trying to extort personal details and money from innocent people? Are you? ARE YOU? SCAMMER??'

If I am lucky, they hang up immediately. If I am unlucky, they insist they are NOT a scammer and then they hang up. It all adds to the rich tapestry of the day.

(P.S I do NOT need to use Tena lady for my personal security. Pelvic floor exercises, don't you know? Just saying...)