Sunday, June 3, 2012

We're in charge of everything.

"Thank you for calling, my name is--"
"What the hell kind of organization are you people running anyway!" the crotchety-sounding old man on the other end of the phone snarled.
I was taken aback for a second. "I'm sorry sir, I'm not sure what you mean."
"Well, somebody just called me from your company! She said she was doing a survey!"
I scanned the account notes quickly. "I'm not showing a record of us contacting you, sir. What was the survey about?"
"I don't know." he growled. "She asked for my credit card so I'd be eligible to get some damn prize and that just ain't legal now is it!"
"Well," I stammered, "I don't think it's illegal to ask--"
"Of course it is! I want to know what you're going to do about!"
"I'm sorry, sir." I tried to sound confident. "It sounds to me like it was some sort of scam. Did you give this person your card number?"
"Hell naw! That ain't legal!"
"That's good. It definitely sounds to me like a scam. I think the best thing to do would be to contact the local police and tell them about this call, because it definitely wasn't anyone from this company."
"I already did that," he grumbled.
"That's good, they should be able to handle it."
"But I want to know why you allow people to do this!" he demanded.
Great, now I get to try to explain free will to this old hillbilly? "It wasn't anyone from our company, and unfortunately we can't control if someone uses our name. Did she specifically say Company Name?"
He hesitated. "Well, I don't really remember." Aha! "But why can't you stop people from making those kinds of calls! It's not legal and it's not right and you shouldn't be letting people do that!"
Sigh. "There are unscrupulous people out there, sir, it's just an unfortunate fact of life."
"But why do you let them make phone calls?"
"Sir .... we can't control who uses the telephone." I tried not to add you idiot on to the end.
"Well, why the hell not! Why don't you stop them from using the phone!"
"Because we're your cable television provider, sir. We don't have anything to do with the phone company."
Silence. "Oh. This is Company, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir." I would have thought the multiple times our automated phone system said the name, and me saying it at the beginning of the call, might have clued you in.
"Oh." Click.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

He sounds like my Dad sounds ever since he hit 80. Hope I don't end up that way in 40 years.

JoeinVegas said...

Oh. Good one for you - cable not phone