Did you honestly think I wouldn't recognize you

[smileyeagle1021]

OK, seriously Mr. Scammer dude, I don't know what your game is, but I've gotten you three times now on three different nights. For the record, yes we do consider it suspicious when your username appears to be something you just smashed your hand against your keyboard to make (November 12th can't come soon enough). Also, you don't think I haven't caught on to the fact that you call at the same time every night asking for the same crazy thing (specifically puppies listed on craigslist, demanding immediate emails of pictures of the puppies... maybe he's a prank caller rather than scammer, but still). You sir truly piss me off to no end, because you give hearing users who assume that relay is for no purpose other than scammers reason to feel that way.

Though on that note, dear hearing user, I agree that this person is probably a scammer, but asking a stupid question like "why the hell would someone call through relay, why can't they just call me themselves." won't garner much support from me, because believe it or not, despite the abuses (which the FCC is cracking down on) the majority of our users have legitimate reason to be using us. That reason of course being that they are deaf and CAN'T call you directly (Ok, so actually they can, we do now have a service where the caller speaks to you directly and we relay your side only, but that isn't very popular yet).

[Enjis]

Sadly, when I worked for a major dept. store, and we got calls from a relay operator, it was ALWAYS a scammer. Wanted stupid amounts of weird merchandies, didn't care about color or size, wanted it all sent to Nigeria or some place like that....
We always tried to get the credit info to give to Loss Prevention, who always called us later to tell us it was fraud.

[smileyeagle1021]

Enjis, you'd like us, we always flag those calls and will immediately have a supervisor take over if it is starting to look like fraud.
We also send out cease and decist orders.
This guy though has never gotten far enough to be told to cease and decist.

[BeeMused]

Sadly, when I worked for a major dept. store, and we got calls from a relay operator, it was ALWAYS a scammer. Wanted stupid amounts of weird merchandies, didn't care about color or size, wanted it all sent to Nigeria or some place like that....
We always tried to get the credit info to give to Loss Prevention, who always called us later to tell us it was fraud.

This is a really common scam, they try it with us too. Uh OK so you want to order 200 of our high end dildos and some TENS units too, shipping to Nigeria. You send us a cheque... we'd cash it, then you'd cancel the order and want us to send you the money with Western Union... and the cheque bounces...

No way... we're a wholesaler and we only ship to Germany... even if we would ship to Nigeria we know THAT scam! Idiots!

[MadMike]

For the record, yes we do consider it suspicious when your username appears to be something you just smashed your hand against your keyboard to make

Sounds like a lot of the spammers we get here on CS. They make themselves so obvious, and a lot of the time I ban them before they have a chance to post, or even finish registering sometimes.

[Dips]

So far the only relay calls we get are from legitimate customers (some are SCs, most are not), thankfully.

I almost wish we'd get one from a scammer in Nigeria, though. We have a reseller in Lagos and it always amuses me to cheerfully offer potential email scammers a referral to him, but none have ever replied.

It would be funny to have one live on the line to find out what they would say in response to the "good" news that they can buy directly from a local source.

But I'd rather have these folks shut down than satisfy my curiousity. I'm very glad that you folks will soon be able to take some measures to stop them abusing the relay system.

[DeltaSierra]

This angers me. I'm deaf and use relay and on occasion VCO where its offered. I absolutely HATE the fact that there are several companies I've tried to call that have refused my relay call because of scammers and I've had to resort to getting my hearing family/friends to make the calls for me.

[smileyeagle1021]

This angers me. I'm deaf and use relay and on occasion VCO where its offered. .

if you'd like, PM me, the company I work for offers VCO, I could look into it for you (though I've never actually handled a VCO call... they are like 911 calls... everyone knows someone who has handled one, but has never taken one themselves).

[klhanson]

I work for a company that starts with a C and ends in Tel and we do telephone captioning for the deaf/hard of hearing..a nd sheesh.. i'm sick of this job already. I know how you guys feel.

[BookstoreEscapee]

if you'd like, PM me, the company I work for offers VCO, I could look into it for you (though I've never actually handled a VCO call... they are like 911 calls... everyone knows someone who has handled one, but has never taken one themselves).

What's VCO?

/curious

[DeltaSierra]

What's VCO?

/curious

Voice Carry-Over. Basically its a relay service for deaf people like myself who have no problem speaking, just problems hearing. We can speak to the person we're calling on our own, and then the replies are relayed to us by a hearing operator.

[AccountingDrone]

Voice Carry-Over. Basically its a relay service for deaf people like myself who have no problem speaking, just problems hearing. We can speak to the person we're calling on our own, and then the replies are relayed to us by a hearing operator.

Ah, I remember getting a couple of those when I was working for ADT ... thankfully I had experience when I was younger with a friends family working with the handicapped so I had heard the rather odd sounding accent before. The flattening or maybe lack of resonance? is a bit tricky on some call center phones with crappy headsets. [though not as bad as the glaswegian, who I am still not convinced was actually speaking english ]

[Rapscallion]

A place in Glasgow recently advertised for a Glaswegian to English translator.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8308288.stm

Rapscallion

[Pagan]

[though not as bad as the glaswegian, who I am still not convinced was actually speaking english ]

The rest of Scotland isn't sure either....

Craig Ferguson had Robert Carlisle (Stargate: Universe) on a while back. With both of them being from Glasgow, I wound up thinking "que?" for a large chunk of the conversation.