'Vehicle Center' scam call..

Bluehair · 30-06-2006 12:30pm #1

Well i stuck my car for sale on carzone last night and boy they must have been up early this morning as sure enough the good old 'vehicle centre' scam call came through at 11:00. I expected the call and had planned on having a bit more fun with him but he woke me up so this had to do

HIM; "Hi is the xxx still for sale?"

ME (bleerely); "Yup sure is"

HIM; "Great my name is xxx from the 'yourcar' vehicle centre and we match buyers to sellers edit usual speel in fact we already have a buyer lined up for your car!"

ME (trying my best to sound enthusiastic as i slowly wake up); "Wow that's fantastic i only have the car for sale a few days!"

HIM; "Yes it's a brilliant new system edit usual rubbish you just need to pay me £100 quid and we're done"

ME; "£100 quid eh? guess that's not too bad when you have a buyer ready for me an all"

HIM; "Not only that but once the buyer arranges his finance through us, and he has no other choice, we give you the money back!"

ME; "Well sure that's brilliant hang on there till i find my credit card!"

So i stick him on hold while i get up, have a wizz, wash myself and generally wake up.

(6 or 7 minutes later)
ME; "Hi, are you still there?"

HIM; "Yes"

ME; "Sorry for keeping you just tracking down that credit card thanks for hanging on"

HIM; "Thats fine..."

Moseyed downstairs and stick the kettle on and make myself a nice cuppa and settle down on the sofa to see whats on telly.

(5 minutes later)
ME; "Thanks for waiting there i think the wallet must be in the laundry basket somewhere i'll just pull all that out now"

HIM; "Um.. ok"

Wonder is there any Top Gear repeats on? Sadly no but whats this? Classic Star Trek? That'll do nicely.. While it's on an ad break i pop into the kitchen and make myself some toast, great morning so far

(6 minutes later)
ME; "Found the wallet but just remembered i'm over my limit is it all right if use my wifes credit card?"

HIM; "Thats no problem"

ME; "Brilliant hang on there a minute i'll just phone her at work from the landline and get the details"

HIM; "....uh ok.... try not to be too long"

ME; "No problem"

Haven't seen this episode before, these 'digitally remastered' look great though i must admit. Had a stroll around the garden while considering mowing the lawn, realised that would probably be pushing it

(9 minutes later)
ME; "Really sorry for keeping you there"

HIM (sounding annoyed); "Have you got the credit card details?"

ME; "Sure have.... you're not annoyed with me are you?

HIM; "No but you've kept me on hold a long time and we have other potential matchs for these buyers too you know"

ME; "Oh sorry, you sound kinda pissed off..."

HIM; "No, can you give me the credit card details please?"

ME; "Sure you're not pissed off?"

HIM; ".......no....."

ME; "Cause i'd be pissed off with someone wasting my time like that."

HIM;.... audible sigh.... "Are you interested in this or not?"

ME; "Well no to be honest but while you're on the line would you be interested in helping a mate of mine in Zimbabwae ship some Gold Bullion out of there?"

HIM; 'click'

Thank you ladies and gentlemen all part of the service

dwayneburke · 30-06-2006 12:34pm

LMFAO....thats the way to do it.....nice one

Roddy23 · 30-06-2006 12:37pm

Brilliant stuff, beats the auld "fcuk off i'm going back to sleep" hands down.

andrew_ireland · 30-06-2006 12:37pm

That is f*ckin brilliant!!:D

connundrum · 30-06-2006 12:41pm

Bravo Bravo!!

I used to work for cbg and the amount of sob stories we'd hear from dumbasses who handed over £100+ was unbelievable.. not saying that cbg was much better now that I think of it :rolleyes:

Anan1 · 30-06-2006 12:43pm

Well done. I've had a bit of fun with them myself, but not to anything like that extent.:D

Cerdito · 30-06-2006 12:47pm

I like it...

For cold callers in general this is the best approach if you want to annoy them, keeping them on the line as long as possible with no sale. Simply slamming the phone down allows them to ring someone else straight away.

All the guys calling you are measured (and possibly even compensated) on metrics like: no. of calls in a day, no. of sales, average call time etc.

If everyone did this then it might make firms think again about cold-calling. Even just saying "let me get my credit card" and leaving the phone down should waste at least 5 mins.

gstonesmx5 · 30-06-2006 12:47pm

same old story.
put 2 car up on wed and got first call on thursday but missed it work with the uk so called back. got reception and asked what they wanted.
them.we have prob got a customer for your car
me. is it you!
them. no...but..
me. ok so take me off all your lists name and number and never call me agin (ina calm manner)
them. all lists ..name & number.
me. yes
them. ok i will do. thanks for ur call.

job done. i hope she keeps her word coz i still have there number.

crosstownk · 30-06-2006 12:52pm

Nice one bluehair - you've given the whole office a laugh!

unkel · 30-06-2006 1:03pm

Class

Never thought of using stalling tactics like that

smash · 30-06-2006 1:25pm

The best I've heard so far, well done....

ianobrien · 30-06-2006 1:44pm

The best one that I did to the cold caller was this.

The phone rang and I answered it in the kitchen, before muting the TV

After answering the phone the caller said that he wanted to speak to someone about a exciting new product or something.

My response "One moment there, I'll get someone"

I looked at the TV, saw that Barney was on the Kids channel, so I gave the caller an earful of Barney (I placed the handset next to the speaker ant turned up the volume).

I ran to the hall to pick up the other phone, and before I got there, he had hung up!

The moral seems to be to put them on hold and feed them Barney Songs!

MercMad · 30-06-2006 1:48pm

Yeah thats cool !

I never really thought about it, just hung up, but wasting their time is really appealing !!

kikel · 30-06-2006 1:50pm

Going to stael that one. Last time i just hung up on them.

zilog_jones · 30-06-2006 2:24pm

Quality. I'll remember this the next time I get telemarketing **** about some phone company I've never heard of...

junkyard · 30-06-2006 2:28pm

I'd love to set up a premium phone line and switch over to it when these w***ers ring up and keep them talking for an age about nothing.:)

Henry Ford III · 30-06-2006 2:41pm

Excellent

JimmySmith · 30-06-2006 2:41pm

I always put cold callers oh hold to and go back to them every few minutes. When i sense they are pissed off i play up to it and tell them i was going to bite but because of their snotty attitude they have lost the sale.

Avns1s · 30-06-2006 2:50pm

Brilliant way of dealing with those callers. I had similar calls generally from UK companies when I advertised a house. I'd have loved to have thought of dealing with them like that.

BTW can anyone come up with a similar way of chastising or even slowing the spammers who clog our inboxes every day? I checked email today after being on holiday since last monday week. 2209 emails in 11 days, 200 a day! Of the 2209, about 50 were not spam. Any malicious ideas to inflict some pain on the senders of this crap would be appreciated!

unkel · 22-09-2006 3:30pm

I put a car up for sale a few days ago and immediately started getting calls from an unidentified UK number. I've disconnected every one of the four calls so far without answering it. Must be confusing them, a seller that never answers his phone

BTW the number that rang me is 0044 20 8887 6170

Just checked on the web and there is no phone number like that on their website, but low and behold, UK directory inquiries lists 020 8887 6100 as Vehicle Center...

Anyone any other tactics to ignore the sh!te out of them?

Next time they ring (and they will), I'll answer the phone with:

me: "Is the Astra still for sale"
VC: "eh..?"
me, interrupting rudely: "My name is John from Vauxhall vehicle center. I've found a buyer for the Astra you are selling."

greglo23 · 22-09-2006 3:40pm

Avns1s wrote:

Brilliant way of dealing with those callers. I had similar calls generally from UK companies when I advertised a house. I'd have loved to have thought of dealing with them like that.

BTW can anyone come up with a similar way of chastising or even slowing the spammers who clog our inboxes every day? I checked email today after being on holiday since last monday week. 2209 emails in 11 days, 200 a day! Of the 2209, about 50 were not spam. Any malicious ideas to inflict some pain on the senders of this crap would be appreciated!

have a look here http://www.spam.org/reporting.htm . you can also forward the spam emails to spam@uce.gov.

Stephen · 22-09-2006 5:27pm

Unkel: Please do keep us up to date

drdre · 22-09-2006 5:33pm

thats good.it made me laugh.as these guys called me 2 weeks ago when i was selling my car:D

BreadBoard · 23-09-2006 1:26am

Brilliant !!!

unkel · 25-09-2006 6:35pm

Stephen wrote:

Unkel: Please do keep us up to date

I wasn't as assertive as I planned, but here goes:

Last Friday, 6PM. VC ringing the mobile

Me: "Vehicle Center, good morning. How may I help you?"
VC: ".....Wha?.."
Me: disconnects call

ringing again

Me: "Vehicle Center, good afternoon. How may I help you?"
VC: "...Eh.."
Me: disconnects call

ringing again, but now they have sent number disabled so the call comes up as "no number". I guess it is them again

Me: "Vehicle Center, good evening. How may I help you?"
VC: "Good evening, .."
Me: disconnects call

ringing again, sent number still disabled

Me: "Vehicle Center, good morning. How may I help you?"
VC: "."
Me: disconnects call

Now they left a message in my voicemail. It said to ring them back as they'd like to make me a job offer :eek:

LOL, they've some sense of humour after all

mike65 · 25-09-2006 6:48pm

Nice one. You should go into Dutch mode.

Mike.

commited · 25-09-2006 8:17pm

unkel wrote:

BTW the number that rang me is 0044 20 8887 6170

Just checked on the web and there is no phone number like that on their website, but low and behold, UK directory inquiries lists 020 8887 6100 as Vehicle Center...

Snap - They rang me about the 75.. I think they must be using the adverts.ie boards as I only advertised there and a few other sites. Did no "pay" advertising.

I was half way through doing a graphic on a sign when she rang me so I was really curt with her - she kept asking me did I know what they did. In the end I just repeated "I'm not interested" over and over and she got the message. :rolleyes:

Didnt need them either - first person who came to see it bought it

unkel · 25-09-2006 10:50pm

commited wrote:

Didnt need them either - first person who came to see it bought it

Congrats on the sale

milltown · 26-09-2006 8:07am

zilog_jones wrote:

Quality. I'll remember this the next time I get telemarketing **** about some phone company I've never heard of...

I didn't realise I was messing with their heads the first few times but now I enjoy it. I have no Eircom line, all my calls are on VOIP via Blueface. They call up saying "we can save you €€€ on your line rental". When I say "no you can't, I don't have a phone line" I think the pauses, while they try to figure out where to go next, are the best bit.

darkbeatz · 26-09-2006 2:39pm

thank god I read this thread. started having my own fun with them. they wanted an email address to send me some info so I told him to mail me at joebloggs@IAMAPRAT.ie and told him to call me back in an hour I am defo interested

still no sign of the mail

unkel · 26-09-2006 3:21pm

They rang again just now. I exclaimed "SOLD!!!" and hung up the phone. Hope that's the end of it now, my ads have all been cancelled / removed

'Vehicle Center' scam call..

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