What's your most exotic spam call

[cbo111]

So, on a lovely October evening in sunny Bradenton, FL, I get a call on my cell from someone in Peru. Peru!! I did not answer, but afterward I could't stop thinking about who would call me from Peru? Weird, though maybe not for my fellow ER's who live in Peru. It got a little stranger when DW says she got a call from Peru the week prior. First, I can't believe she withheld this vital information from me for a week! Second, someone got both of our numbers and really wants to talk. The call may actually not be from Peru; maybe someone in Arkansas is spoofing a number like it came from Peru. But why, to what end? Do they think I will be so intrigued by the Peru prefix that I would simply have to answer?
And if I did answer, I don't even speak Pervian!!

 

[scrabbler1]

Not sure it was spam or not, but a year or two ago I got a call on my cell phone from a NY City woman (or recording of one) babbling in Chinese. This was before my recent policy of simply opening the cell phone half an inch then closing it right away, instantly disconnecting the call without bothering to hear anything the caller or robocaller says. I have a low-end pay-per-minute cell phone plan, so I have no desire to waste my minutes listening to all the garbage calls.

 

[Walt34]

I think the most exotic was Microsoft calling to tell me my computer was sending "error codes". That was a live person. The IRS only leaves robocalls on the recorder and if they can't be bothered to have a live person call I'm going to ignore them.

We don't get very many spam calls anymore since I installed a call blocker.

 

[bingybear]

As many people I get quite a few span calls. But some of the non-intended spam calls are better. If you flip a couple digits in my phone number you get a parole officer. I've called some of these callers back because leaving me a message does not help their case and I really don't want someone getting a harder time for a miss dial. I've also called lawyers back who made the same miss dial.
Some just refused to accept that they dialed the wrong number. I could only do so much.

 

[CardsFan]

Not really spam, but I will still occasionally get a butt dial from China. Co-workers that had my number, which I kept after leaving. Usually just noise in the back ground, from a number in my contacts. (Though I have recently purged most of those).

 

[MRG]

Exotic?

Well I told a scammer wanting DW's new Medicare number a few things they could do. DW said most were physically impossible.

Maybe I misunderstood your question? [emoji111]

 

[CardsFan]

Exotic?

Well I told a scammer wanting DW's new Medicare number a few things they could do. DW said most were physically impossible.

Maybe I misunderstood your question? [emoji111]

They said EXOTIC not EROTIC

 

[braumeister]

I eat a fair amount of Spam; I like it. But I never get calls about it and I never really considered it exotic.

However, I see that there are now 13 different varieties, so maybe some of them really are exotic.

Today, there are 13 different varieties of Spam — classic, less sodium, lite, hot & spicy, Black Pepper, Jalapeño, spread, singles, singles lite, hickory smoke, bacon, cheese, and roasted turkey. The Jalapeño and Black Pepper selections were introduced for Spam's 75th anniversary

 

[Ginny]

My DH, DS and I are on the same phone plan and we all got a call at the same time from the same spam phone number. We happened to be together so we compared notes. It was amazing. Not exotic, however.

 

[Oz investor]

i got a few calls from ( allegedly ) the Chinese Embassy , but i don't speak fluent Mandarin so i didn't get the phone number from this persistent ( female ) fan

is that exotic or erotic ( or both )

 

[Choices]

Exotic Spam? I always liked to fry the stuff but it is now probably too salty to suit my diet.
I did get a voice mail from, I guess, the IRS, but the dude’s accent was so thick, all I knew was I was/am in big trouble.
We do not answer unknown numbers...

 

[NYEXPAT]

OP, sorry about that! I tend to do a lot of "butt dialing"! While I have your attention, I have a pair of tickets for an all inclusive tour of Machu Picchu at a really sweet discount. If you and the Missus are interested it includes Free Pisco sours and "Pervian language" lessons!

 

[Dtail]

Not sure it was spam or not, but a year or two ago I got a call on my cell phone from a NY City woman (or recording of one) babbling in Chinese. This was before my recent policy of simply opening the cell phone half an inch then closing it right away, instantly disconnecting the call without bothering to hear anything the caller or robocaller says. I have a low-end pay-per-minute cell phone plan, so I have no desire to waste my minutes listening to all the garbage calls.

Bolded - my DGF and I get this call about once a month. Sounds like a recording.

 

[scrabbler1]

Back in my early working days (1980s), the first office phone number I had happened to be off by one digit from two different legit businesses, and I often got calls for either one. One was a home-care service from a local hospital. The other was the local office of Egypt Airlines. Remembering an old Robin Williams joke, I considered taking the ticket order and ask the customer, "Will that Armed or Unarmed?"

 

[RobbieB]

Those sound like scam calls, like "the license on your computer has expired and all services will be stopped."

Now a spam call is "you've just won a 3 day trip to Miami"

 

[pacergal]

I get lots of robo calls, never pick it up and no one ever leaves a voice mail. No surprise there!

 

[calico1597]

When we moved into this house and got a new phone number 20 years ago, it was apparently an old number for a pizza place. I got tired of telling callers they had the wrong number and started taking pizza orders. I even offered some amazing specials....it didn't take long for the calls to end at that point, ha!

 

[Walt34]

The funniest story I ever heard about two businesses being one phone number digit apart was this one. An automotive collision repair shop had a phone number one digit different from a funeral home. A misdialed call intended for the funeral home would be answered with "body shop" followed by a gasp and a hang-up.

 

[Dawg52]

I hardly ever get them anymore. I used to hear from Rachel from credit card services. She must have gone to jail as she hasn't buzzed me in a couple of years. I finally got a call from someone representing the IRS but hung up on them. I figured they misdialed.

 

[scrabbler1]

I hardly ever get them anymore. I used to hear from Rachel from credit card services. She must have gone to jail as she hasn't buzzed me in a couple of years. I finally got a call from someone representing the IRS but hung up on them. I figured they misdialed.

Rachel has been replaced by lots of other women who make similar sales pitches to reduce the interest rate on one's credit cards.

 

[CaptTom]

When we moved into this house and got a new phone number 20 years ago, it was apparently an old number for a pizza place. I got tired of telling callers they had the wrong number and started taking pizza orders. I even offered some amazing specials....it didn't take long for the calls to end at that point, ha!

Reminds me of Hyacinth Bucket:
https://youtu.be/vsZGHxb4caA

Anyway, my oddest call was many years ago, when the calls were often quasi-legitimate sales pitches for things like timeshare condos. I politely told the nice lady that I wasn't interested, and was about to hang up, but...

She said it was her first day, and asked if she could read through her whole script anyway. Being the nice guy that I am, I gave in and said "sure," but added that I still wasn't interesting in buying anything.

Well, we had a great time going through her little talk. At then end I expected to be thanked for taking the time to help her out.

No. She asked me if I was ready to buy. I mentioned that I'd said at the beginning that I wasn't interested. She laced into me with a profanity-laden tirade about how awful *I* was for wasting *her* time.

It was a great lesson about the value in treating these callers like humans. Never again.