One thing you could have some fun with would be a compilation of hilariously bad spam robocalls. There are some doozies out there.
One case in point: a couple of weeks ago I actually broke with custom and answered the phone without checking if the number was one I recognized. The "caller" turned out to be a droning voice on tape. Told me that my social security number had been matched to an incident of tax fraud and a warrant had been issued for my arrest. Kinda didn't help their credibility that they didn't know my name, or anything else about me really.
Similarly I've been getting messages today on some ridiculous amount of money I seem to have laid out in Amazon purchases. Same issues as above, but with a couple of new wrinkles this time. They don't even say who they are. Like, is Amazon reaching out because of the insane amount I've spent on butterscotch or whatever? Pretty sure they're not trained to look a gift horse in the mouth. Which leaves my credit card company, but they're not identifying themselves as employees of such.
I know I should be grateful that they don't demonstrate any core competence. And truly, I am. That would make for a scary world.
2 comments:
I remember the days when companies actually hired people to make calls to random people in hopes they'd purchase products. In fact, I once had a job doing just that. Picture a large room with several long tables and on those tables were open cardboard boxes open to face the chairs placed in front of them. Inside those boxes were telephones with the sales pitch we were to read taped to the interior. The idea was one had to keep one's head inside the box so the callee couldn't hear the hubbub. I had that job until lunchtime.
But I know what you mean about robocalls. At one point we had our phone on a 'do not call' list that only worked for a little while before there were more than ever. After a while your custom became the only way to deal with the annoyance - let their machine talk to our machine.
One of the best things about moving to Canada was no more robocalls. I don't know if they have laws against the practice here but they may as well have since we get none. Occasionally, I'll get a spam email on my real address with the dead giveaway that no matter what official source they purport to be from a quick scan over the address shows 'soandso at hotmail' or something equally bogus.
You're right that bots show no core competence on the phone or the internet. So far so good.
Oh, I have my own story as far as that goes. My first job out of college was to sit at a phone and call people to pitch them on a voicemail system. You were supposed to stick to a script they gave you but if you weren't making sales then they'd tell you to improvise more. And vice versa. I was there a little longer than you were at the other place, but not by much and I probably shouldn't have been.
The Do Not Call list dates from the early 2000s I think. At some point I had no choice but to sign up for it because my phone was ringing every ten minutes, usually with no voice on the other end. But the calls eventually started up again. I think there's an exception for charities and nonprofits, but now everyone else figures you won't be sharp enough to ask.
The absence of robocalls sounds refreshing, although I'm sure there are other drawbacks to living in Canada now and in fact you've both told me about some of them. Spam emails tend to be clever in a stupid way, like they'll have an overly familiar header despite the fact that you obviously don't know them.
Who knows, an artificially intelligent salesman might be just around the corner. It might develop artificial self-loathing, though.
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