I never thought of this before, but I have to ask what people are thinking when they agree to be the voice of what is almost certainly a telescam robocall. I don’t know what will happen if I contact this individual, or whoever would answer if I was stupid enough to call 248-814-2110 from a traceable phone. The conventional wisdom seems to be that returning this call would turn you into a willing and interested party who would be targeted with more robocalls. I don’t know and don’t need to know what consequence might arise should I call this number, but I know from my past acquaintances that perfectly intelligent and even unusually smart people fall for this kind of thing. I think there is a psychology about it where the calls are seen as something of a trophy, or a source of pride. I got this call. I got this piece of junk mail, which solicits my evaluation of a bargain price on a couch I don’t need or a vacation I don’t want. As automated as these things are I think there remains an enduring belief that junk mail and garbage phone calls are targeting individuals based on knowledge of their lives and needs. I remember a timer a corporate when one of the admins was standing by my desk, and she saw that I’d received a spam e-mail with a subject line that read something like “LOOKING FOR HOT SLUTS AND HORNY HOUSEWIVES?” I don’t remember the exact subject line now but that was the gist of it. This was the early days of spam, so I guess the admin could be forgiven for thinking this, but she automatically assumed I was receiving this type of email because whoever sent it targeted me as an interested and relevant individual who would be looking sluts and housewives. I barely knew this woman, and I suspect that on account of that her perceptions of me as a porn junkie were allowed to flourish. If she remembers me at all to this day I suspect she still thinks I had some connection to online prostitution rings.
So the question remains: Do people know what they are getting into when they agree to be the voice of a telemarketing scam? I assume they are being paid to do it. Until now I only remember hearing two voices from this particular scam. One was a fairly earnest sounding woman who called herself Cheryl, another was a chipper but concerned sounding dude whose name I don’t remember. They never say what number to call them back at, instead just saying to call them back at the number shown on CallerID. To me that suggests they go through numbers quickly, retiring them when they are outed or else losing access when their VOIP provider discovers their scam. Well, it is nothing to spend any more mental cycles on than I already have, I suppose, although it’s worth mentioning that Carmen’s performance is the least convincing of any others I can remember.
