Duct Cleaning -- just another scam

Recently we have been getting a lot of phone calls with regards to having the ducts cleaned in our house. Now to explain things we live in an apartment building so this means that instead of just saying that I am not interested I have decided that it is more fun to keep these scammers on the phone for a few minutes and bug them. So here are some of the questions and replies that have been given.

1. Hello mam we have a special on some duct cleaning in your area. Can you please tell me now many bedrooms are on the top floor of your house

Response: There are 20 bedrooms on the top floor.

Scammers: Excuse me mam I asked how many bedrooms on the top floor of your house.

Response: There are 20 bedrooms.

At this point either one of two things normally happens. They re-ask the question for a third time or they just hang up.

2. Hello mam we have a special offer for you as we are currently on your street and would like to offer some duct cleaning for your home.

Response: Oh, so you are cleaning the ducts in the apartments around me.

Scammer: No mam we are on your street and cleaning the ducts in the houses around you.

Response: So you are cleaning the ducks in the apartment buildings around you.

Scammer: No mam, the houses on your street.

Response: That is extremely difficult as there are only apartment buildings on my street.

Scammer: No mam, the houses on your street.

Response: thanks but I am not interesting and I don’t think the apartment owner wants anyone doing work on only one unit.

This is where they hang up but at least I have kept them on the phone for a couple of minutes.

Now here is the latest one and it was a lady that called this time. Normally I have had a man call.

3. Hello mam we have a special on some duct cleaning in your area. Can you please tell me the square footage of your home.

Response : 350,000 square feet.

Scammer: Excuse me mam I asked how many square feet your home is.

Response: 350,000 square feet.

Scammer: Oh, so how many bedrooms are upstairs.

Response: 20 bedrooms (this is where I could have said 200 as there are ten floors above our unit)

Scammer: Oh, excuse me is this a castle?

Response: Well isn’t every home your castle?

This is once again there they hung up but it was a fun conversation this time.

So now I am waiting to receive another one of these calls and I will be ready with some other questions for them.

1. What is the name of the company as I only deal with reputable companies.

• I am figuring that I will probably get a response like we are reputable.

2. What is the name of the company as I would like to know the name of the company before I do business with it as it only comes up “unknown caller” on my caller id.

• Will see what response I get for this one.

Yes scammers are trying everything to get information from people so it means that you just have to learn how to play their games. I figured that there are times that I am just going to keep them on the phone for a couple of minutes because then it means that there are a couple less people that they can call. We all receive these types of phone calls even when we are on the do not call lists or have unlisted phone numbers. It doesn’t matter what you do to try and avoid getting them other than not having a phone at all.

A fun result from one of this type of scam was one of those MicroSoft scammers. My husband was actually able to keep the person on the phone for over half an hour asking the scammer a bunch of questions. Yes, my husband was having fun trying to see how far he could go and keep the scammer on the phone. Well the call ended up getting disconnected so we figured the fun was over until the scammer called back and apologized for getting cut off and then told my husband that he was a very smart and knowledgeable person and then said good bye.

Knowing that you are going to get this type of call no matter what helps. No I don’t always keep the person on the phone as it will depend on what I am doing but if I have those couple of minutes I will see how much info I can get without giving any valid info to them. So, no I don’t need my ducts cleaned and sorry “MicroSoft” or “the Internet” but I know better and will not let you get information from me.