Just got called by someone for some kind of marketing

[selo]

Just got a weird phone call... some guy, a business i think because i could hear other phones/people on the background. He assured me it was not a sales call and i could relax etc. He told me that they work with a lot of companies and wanted to send me an email with recommendations. Without having to agree or buy anything etc.

I asked him what kind of recommendations or what kind of companies, but he did not answer that and wanted to send the mail. The mail he was going to send would be to my company email, its displayed on my site so no suprise there but he called me on my private phonenumber... ??

Oh and he spoke English. Im from the Netherlands and I only work with Dutch companies so far. He also spoke very slow and took his time... Maybe I watch too many movies but it felt like he was stalling time to figure out my geo-location or something

It this some sort of scam? I said i am not interested and he actually said, how can you not be interested in something you don't know what it is... I told him im not interested in anything if he can't tell me what he was calling for...

Anyone with the same experience?

 

[waday]

Sounds like a scam/sales pitch to me!

 

[Designer]

scam

 

[selo]

Yeah thought so... but why did he not just send the email instead of calling? Too look more reliable? how the hell did he found my private phone number and linked it to my company? It is not linked anywhere??

 

[Overread]

Scam
Likely he called because most emails like this get auto-sent to the junk folder by auto-junk filters to start with; so this group of scammers is trying to avoid that by phoning up. By calling and making themselves sound legitimate.


As for how he got your number there is a range of possibilities:
1) Links of data - might be your name is on your company site - with that he then searched and found your details on another website (its not abnormal for details such as personal contact information to be present on websites - heck you might even have filled in your details on one of the many "portfolio" websites around on the net).

2) He didn't have any connection at all and instead simply gives you the same line everyone else gets; but using language that made you reveal more information than you realised about yourself; thus giving him enough info to then find your company website and details.


You can tell its a scam because he didn't want to sell on the phone - likely trying to get around legalities on telemarketing and because it would possibly eat up more time and he's on a quota and doesn't want time-wasters eating up scam-time.

Could be simply harmless sales attempts; or could be all the way into loading your computer with viruses as you "download the attached file for further information".

Heck there are a lot of the "Hello this is Microsoft Technical Support calling you about the virus you have" who can speak in decent national languages and which attempt to sound very professional. Again they make you reveal things you don't realise whilst talking (whilst also starting things under the assumption that you own a computer in the first place - which these days is pretty much the norm) and at the same time want you to download files and then give them "open repair access" to your computer - next thing you know your card details, bank details and anything else are theirs.

 

[jsecordphoto]

If I had a dollar for every scam email/call/message I got like that, I'd be shooting with a phase one camera

 

[selo]

Im pretty sure i didn't give him any info through the phone. I doubt i filled my personal number to any portfolio page etc. but i'm not 100% sure.

I did request info from a few chinese companies for photo albums etc. I gave them my company email, but not my personal number. I guess its not hard to figure out a phone number when you know someone's name (or surname) and there company name, online phone books etc.

I get scam mails daily but this was the first one that I got a call from. Bastards...

 

[KmH]

He assured me it was not a sales call

Right there - alarm bells start ringing and red flags start waving.

"Sorry buddy. I don't have time to talk to you. Bye!

 

[Gary A.]

I dunno ... I see some Matrix stuff going on here. Maybe you should invest in a night-light ... send the family to the countryside ... change the password for your banking ...

 

[selo]

or this..

 

[vintagesnaps]

Sounds like a scam. If you heard other people in the background it could be that he was at a call center that makes calls for other companies.

There are robo calls that I think just dial numbers at random. So they don't seem to have to obtain phone numbers, if they dial one and someone answers they know it's a current number in use. But with you having sent for info. from other countries, some of those companies may not be legit and could be selling your information.

I would not give them any information, or indicate any interest (if I even continue the conversation which I usually don't) - if I even answer the phone (I check the caller ID and screen calls). I have sometimes asked for their company's information etc. and have reported them to the Do Not Call list we have in the US (I'm registered on that so should not be getting these type calls).

You could find out info. from them if you think it might be legit - you can always look up the company and if it is legit you can contact them back later.

 

[astroNikon]

If you have a website many of these places scan websites and the public WHOIS domain information.
So there's many places that these telemarketing places get contact information, phone numbers, addresses, etc.

By saying it's not a sales they are skirting the telemarketing information because they are providing you information (email, whitepaper, etc). which THEN they'll followup and try to make a sales call out of it.

FYI, If you can hear other people in the background you know it's a call center.

 

[Derrel]

He assured me it was not a sales call

Right there - alarm bells start ringing and red flags start waving.

"Sorry buddy. I don't have time to talk to you. Bye!

OP--You ought to get on YouTube and look into the Tom Mabe fun with telemarketers videos!!!

I used to have a lot of fun with telemarketers by stringing them along a bit, and saying things like, "Oh WOW!!! That sounds great! But first, I need to ask Sandy about this offer and see what she says. I run everything by Sandy."

Telemarketer: "Oh, is Sandy your wife?"

Me: "My wife? heck no-she's MUCH more important than a wife--she's my cat! Sandy, there's a man on the phone, and he wants to give us a free vacuum cleaner demonstration in-home sometime next week. What day would be best? Can you cough up a good hairball for the nice man? Okay, I'm back...Sandy is a bit worried about this...she says she can't be expected to produce a hairball on such short notice, so, maybe you ought to schedule next week..."

Seriously....this "I need to ask my cat" line of BS actually works!!!

 

[waday]

My mother-in-law (Spanish as a first language, English as a second) would pretend to be the housekeeper and say, "Oh, were you the person that was going to donate $100 to the homeowner's cause? He said you were going to call. That's great, let me get a pen to write down your credit card number... ok, I'm ready..."

 

[rlemert]

The last one I got was obviously a canned conversation. I picked up the phone, and heard "Hi, this is Jeff from the Customer Service Center. How are you doing today?" There was a short pause while I started to respond with a brush-off, then a quick "that's great, the reason for my call is ..." - speaking over me as if I wasn't even there. Eventually, he got to "you haven't responded to the offer we sent you, so we're following up ..."

Note that at no point did he ever identify who's customer service center he was talking about.

Needless to say, I can't tell you how the rest of his spiel went because that's when I ended the call.