Hello, Is This Mr…. Hamburger?

Nope, but I’m going to keep you in the line.

Have you ever had a telemarketer or scam call come to your phone when you may actually have a little time to waste?

A while back, I was sitting at the DMV (a place I loathe for having to wait for too long), and a scam caller gave me a buzz. I looked around for a moment and then decided to answer.

“Hello, this is Jack,” I said calmly.

Pause

“Hello? Is this Mister… uh… Mr. Hamburger?” the young man asked.

“Yes, yea it is. What’s your name?”

“My name is Kevin! And I have an opportunity of a lifetime,” he began reading from his script. At this point, I switched my phone to the speaker. Yep, speakerphone right in the middle of the DMV. I could not help myself.

“Okay Kevin, you can tell me your lifetime opportunity and then I will tell you mine when you are finished,” I said with a smile. A few annoyed people looked over with interest now.

“Uh, what, up. Okay. My opportunity is to bring you in on a lucrative deal that could make you millions virtually overnight. All I would need is some basic information to get started and then a specialist will follow up with you in 24 hours. Are you interested in making millions of dollars?” he read to me.

At this point, a few more people were looking at me very confused, but they sat a listened as our story unfolded.

“I sure am Kevin. What kind of information do you need? If you can let me know everything you need upfront, I can make sure to have it all available, does that sound okay?” I replied to him.

“Yes, of course,” he replied quickly thinking he was going to get me, “I just need your name, date of birth, address, phone number, and social security number for reporting purposes.”

A few people became alarmed around me, I could tell they thought I was really going to give this guy my information. But this was the perfect time for the turn.

“Okay Kevin, you already have my name and phone number. So, you should be good there. However, I am going to need a few things from you before I can give you the rest of my information. Does that sound okay?” I asked.

“Sure,” is all he said in reply.

“Well, Kevin, in order to get my information, you are going to need to give me yours. You know, you show me yours, I show you mine? So, what is your actual name? And what is your social security number?”

There was a long pause on the phone. The onlookers started smiling. They knew this wasn’t going to go well for “Kevin.”

“Kevin, are you there?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, can I get your social security number? It will be easier for me to find out where you live and access your bank accounts,” I said calmly.

“Why… Why would you need to do that?” he asked sheepishly now.

“Well, this is where my once in a lifetime offer comes in, are you ready for it,” I responded without missing a beat.

“Sure.”

“Kevin, my once in a lifetime offer is a piece of advice. My advice to you is to find a new job. Maybe start at a gas station if you don’t have a degree. Then, work your way to a grocery store. Or, if you have a degree, I would suggest getting an entry-level position for a company with high-level integrity,” I said.

At this point, I may have gone too far. But I wanted to drive the point home. After all, he mispronounced my name (Hi-mm-big-ner for those who are wondering).

“Um… This has gotten really weird. Can you hang up so I can get onto my next call? I can’t hang up the phone until you do,” was his only reply.

With a smile, I said, “Kevin, best of luck to you. Oh, one last thing, I do have a friend who might be interested, can I give you his name and number?”

Like a fool, he took my friend’s number. And, he called it… My friend is a farmer and was currently working ten-hour days driving his tractor in a field with no one to talk to.

My friend texted me a few days later:

“Hey, I talked to Kevin about a once in a lifetime offer. He said you gave him my number. We talked for two hours before he finally stopped responding.”

Why Did I Write This?

This story was written from a prompt from Illumination and editor Timothy Key which comes from this post:

The Challenge:

I hereby issue the challenge to anyone willing to accept, to create a humorous and satirical response to an attempted scam, be it by phone, email, word of mouth or whatever way you became aware of it.

One Final Note

As I have always enjoyed having a little fun with telemarketers and scammers, this story fits perfectly for the challenge. I did in fact do this at a DMV. And I did in fact give them my friend’s phone number.

A side note: My friend who talked to the scammer for two hours once kept a vacuum salesman at his house for three hours while he tried to find a rug for him to demonstrate, my friend has all hardwoods in his house…

Thank you for reading!