Monday, March 15, 2010

Sanity Lost

This weekend Blowfish was occupied elsewhere s0 I had the Pond house to myself. I did try doing some of the early Spring outdoor chores but the wind drove me indoors. I'm a bit behind on my house beautifying for Spring activities so I decided to capture this weekend with getting the house in order, getting the Easter decorations out and placed, getting all the laundry done and getting the heavier of the Winter clothing rotated out of the main closets.

Most of this got accomplished but Sunday afternoon around 1pm I got diverted. The Pond land line phone rang. These days most everyone calls cell phones. The majority of the calls to the land line are things like appointment reminders, politicians or those struggling to collect funds for their favored not for profit organization. But it was Sunday afternoon, I had been upstairs while the cell had been downstairs so I answered the old phone upstairs ( no caller ID).

" Hello"
" Is this Mrs. Fishery?"
" No, Mrs. Fishy"
" Is your location blah blah address"?
" I'm sorry, I don't think I caught your name"?
" Can you verify your social?"

I hung up and went downstairs to check the caller ID
" Anonymous"
Well, okay this was disruptive and a tad annoying but fleeting.
I got some lemonade and started back upstairs when the land line rang again.
Caller ID said, "Anonymous".
I did not answer the call and went on upstairs.
The phone continued to ring after a brief pause. I thought this weird because it is set to go to voice mail after 6 rings.The phone kept ringing . Foolishly I again answered the upstairs phone
without the caller ID.

" Hello".
"Our records show you are indeed Mrs. Fishery at blah, blah address"
" Your records are incorrect and do not call this number again."
Not 5 seconds after disconnecting the phone began to ring again.
I did not answer.
The phone rang continuously.
Annoyingly.
I went downstairs, looked up the non emergency number for our "bundled" provider. Which, I called on my cell phone. Eventually I spoke to a humanoid, explained the issue and asked how to put a stop to this. They asked if I had tried to activate the call block feature on my phone? Sure, didn't work. They traced the call to some center on the other side of the Earth and blocked all calls from that number to my landline. So while I did not enjoy their infomercials, their music selections or the difficulty in getting to their humanoid, I was VERY grateful my landline had stopped ringing and I could return to uninterrupted nest feathering.

By the time I got to the top of the stairs the phone was ringing.
Really annoyed, I answered the phone.
" Hello!"
" Mrs. Fishery, we have lots of numbers, you cannot block them all".
What the HELL! Some creep on another continent was phone stalking me?
" Please stop calling here. I am not Mrs. Fishery, I am not at blah blah address and I do not wish to hear from you again."
" Mrs. Fishery, can you verify your social number now?"
I put the handset down and again called the phone service on my cell, explained the issue and asked how this could be stopped. Seems they are in the process of "upgrading" their technology and during that process 'certain' systems can by-pass their system during the transition phase.
" How do I stop this stalker from calling me during your transition?"
" You can disconnect your land line".
" For how long?"
" Our transition will take a few months, but we can ask IT if there is a solution before then."
" Really, if I do that do you credit my account for loss of service?"
"NO, we are providing the services. It would be you deciding to take a hiatus from services, not us taking a hiatus from providing services."
"What! I would be electing to take a hiatus from a phone stalker while your services and protections are being breached."
" Would you like for me to report this circumstance to a manager?"
"You mean you haven't already done so?"
" It's a weekend. I sent an e-mail. Some one in IT will take care of this on straight time"
" My time , my weekend time, is seriously being interfered with by a certain by-passing system stalker but I guess that does not warrant attention outside of straight time?"
" Will there be anything else?"
" No, thank you".
So I went back inside where the landline was continuously ringing.
I went through my house turning off the ringers on every phone.
Around 7pm, when I checked, my phones again had a dial tone.

Then I went upstairs to watch Eagle Eye.
I guess every civilization has challenges.
I don't much worry about Indians or Pirates.

13 comments:

Pam said...

Argh! I totally feel your pain about this. I used to call my own number and then put the receiver under a pillow .... it would get the busy signal but wouldn't hear it from under the pillow. What happened to you is crazy though ... I'm sure some folks willingly give out their SSN without thinking.

Jenny said...

That's really horrible. I get these calls, but never that aggressive once I say "take my name off your list please."

The other night I had a call at 8:45 and from an 800 number. I answered; "you know what time it is here?" and the person said "Yes, I do". I answered "then you'll know it's too late to be calling this home" and I hung up.

Last week I had a angry telemarketing person call back after I effectively hung up on him and I lost it; told him I was recording the call and would be tracking him down because I was crazy and had decided the voices in my head were true." He hung up VERY FAST. I looked over to see my bidness partner just shaking his head.

I see all of these as a waste of my time.

Buzz Kill said...

Have you ever seen the movie "He Knows You're Alone"? Have you checked the children? Bwahahaha

I've never had a telemarketer that was that aggressive. The fact that he (although I don't think you you identified gender) was asking for a social security number tells me it wasn't a telemarketer but a scam artist. I'd report them to the police if they call back (but I doubt they will because you weren't biting on their questions). Pretty scary stuff.

chickory said...

when i get stalker calls, they ask whatever and then i say, "sure, can you hold on a moment?" and then i put the phone down and dont go back. it works. cause it ties them up and prevents the call back. if that doesnt work, theres always an air horn!

Aunty Belle said...

Grrrr!


Fugeddaboutit! Show us pics from yore garden/ yard/ Easter adornments!

Kymical Reactions said...

what the frank!!!! When we moved into our house last year, we couldn't keep our pervious phone number (annoying, it had been my number for 10 years.)

After 6 months of NOONE calling us other than annoying sales, politicals, and the like, I called the "bundled" company and canceled our land line. We haven't missed it one bit.

Fishy, if he calles you back, you demand answers. argh!!!! I'm pissed FOR you.

Kymical Reactions said...

*previous.

fishy said...

Pam,
So when your phone is under the pillow isn't your phone out of service because of some pest? My Mother does not call me often but if she does it is an issue of importance to her and she calls my land line.

Boxer,
it IS horrible because there is an assumption of a right to access because I have a phone line or because of some data base. We have done the do not call registry, which has to be renewed annually, but it sure didn't help this time. I loathed the veiled threat implied by the you are who we say you are and we know your location and if we are wrong prove it by stating your SSN? It's outrageous! Had it been the one phone call I'd think nothing about it, but that stalking, agressive , I will punish you creepiness was different.

Buzz,
Yep. probably a scam because of the SSN request. The bundler sends the techno data to their security hierarchy. The local badges have no way to deal with international telethugs.

That's my real issue, why should my domestic tranquility be stolen by an internatinal telethug?
Probably works for an outsourced call center with USA contracts and data entry errors galore.

Chickory,
" when I get a stalker ...", Boxer mentioned 2,
Buzz is thinking "teleMARKETER". Why should we all be subjected to this? Like Pam, in order to avoid the stalker you have to disrupt your own use of a basic utility. It's not a big deal, but it sure annoys.

Aunty,
Yes ma'am. My mother taught me to not disrespect my elders. Not much to post about yet, if my garden pops out i promise to take and post the pictures.

Kymical Reactionary,
Indeed...who the frank are they to interrupt my life and phone service at all, never mind so rudely? I don't mind hanging up on these creeps but I do mind a lot when I am prevented from clearing them from my line. I am TRULY grateful life's hardships have never delivered me to a call center job for survival. UGH! I probably would have starved if I
didn't expire from a colossal stress headache first.

I know lots of young folks are forgoing the expense of land lines. As one says, "my friendss are calling to talk to me, not my house". I'm okay with that but really, I think a land line is good to have in emergencies if your cell has no signal. I would guess now the statistics probably show the land lines are down more often than the wireless providers.

Jenny said...

FYI - my Father recently moved into an apartment and I gave him a cell phone over having a land line installed. The power went out yesterday and guess what? He was able to call my Sister. A land line? wouldn't have worked.

moi said...

Yikes! I've never had such an aggressive caller, but I do get pushy sales people trying to get me to donate to so many charities, I'm beginning to get pissed. Last time, one of those calls was at noon on a Sunday. I asked, "Do you know this is a Sunday?" They answered in the affirmative. "Well, then, you're going to hell for working on this day of rest." and hung up the phone.

Seriously, though, you should report this person to your attorney general. Their behavior is predatory and the phone company will gladly give up their name and location.

Blowfish said...

Boxer,
Dad has improved enough to have an apartment? Wow! Looks like some TLC and fine doctoring have wrought great improvements. So pleased for you.
Good of you to get Dad the cell phone and how comforting to know he can reach out to family with or without power.

Moi,
You know on the day I just felt irritated. After reading this post again I thought, wow this is way beyone irritating. I think the provider does forward relevant data to the authorities. I guess I thought the telethug was so agressive because of their certainty I was someone else.
If you visited Aunty's Lent post then you will have learned I gave up anger this year and it was VERY difficult for me to not have an anger response to this caller! I was however, very irritated.

fishy said...

Oh bother!
Blowfish doesn't blog, I used his computer neglecting to sign him out and me in.

Jenny said...

I just left a comment on a blog and it was my Dad's new email name. Bwahahahah. Yes, he's better..... we hope 6 months? Longer? He's living alone but he has my sister 1 mile away and I'm here on weekends.

We need a good Fishy post with Easter pictures! Or maybe some designer things. :-)