OK, you don't know who you are fooling with! A quick Google search on "AIM Daisy" brought back a hit on how I could change my AIM (America Online Instant Messaging) "buddy" icon to Daisy Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard. Hmm, no joy there.
I pressed *69 out of futility, every telemarketer knows to block that feature, correct? HAH! I got a recording providing the phone number, and selected the option for the automated dialback. I received an error message indicating the phone number was marked private and the call could not be completed.
I almost gave up then figured hey why not try a manual redial. Bingo! The call was picked up by a person who identified them as "American Independent Mortgage". OK, the AIM mystery solved. I asked if Daisy was there. After being put on hold shortly, the operator came back on and said that Daisy was not there and could she take a message for her? "Nope", I replied; "I'll try back later". Game on!
Then, I typed the phone number into Google (Google also returns phone number information if it is publicly listed). You'll never believe what I found. Seriously. There were two hits, one was for a local (Portland) mortgage office with the address of the business.
But the other was gold - I kid you not, an excel worksheet of 6,559 licensed mortgage companies posted to a Washington state government website. There was contact information (personal name), physical addresses, office phone numbers, fax numbers, etc. All at my fingertips.
My introduction into technology was the use of a predictive dialer for past due loans at a bank I worked for. I still know enough to think I could have found a used dialer on eBay, hook it up to a PBX and call everyone of those mortgage companies over and over and over finally crashing their phone switch and grinding the economy to a halt with a recorded message that says something like this:
Hello, thanks for calling. We're not interested in your crummy products and even lousier service. We know that you are going to sell our loan to an even lousier service provider. Furthermore, we're annoyed that even though we're on a do not call list you still persist in pestering us.
Well, I'm not really that malovent or mischevious. But still, it would be fun!
The story had a good ending though. A few days later good old AIM showed up again on my phone. Snatching it up, I answered before the telemarketer could even speak:
The story had a good ending though. A few days later good old AIM showed up again on my phone. Snatching it up, I answered before the telemarketer could even speak:
Hi, is Daisy there?
The telemarketing was derailed from her script and stammered a bit. I said, "this is Dave, is Daisy there? She was still a bit rattled so I asked if there was a Daisy in her office. She said no, and plaintively bleated out "I called YOU" I replied, "then please take me off of your calling list. I'm not interested in your calls and I'm happy with my interest rate. She recovered a bit and tried to sell me, but I pushed right back and said "did you hear what I said? I'm not interested and take me off of your calling list" She said OK and hung up. Goodbye Daisy!
