Everybody is talking about Emu, Tall

One of the pleasures of owning a business is being rude to dodgy salespeople[*]. There are loads of them around, and over the last year we've had a number of them call us.  Pushy buggers they can be, and usually they'll lie, cheat, steal and kill to get what they want - a corporate account.  This year, there have been a couple of happy customers to the Mike Nash school of charm.  This is a selection of them.

The phone scammers

Congratulations!  I'm calling about your Telstra account, and you're going to start to save 40% on your calls next month. What they want you to do is say "Yes" so they can switch you over to their competing phone service, but they get in through the door by implying they're from Telstra.  I'm not going to name the company, because that might embarass People Telecom - so - you'll have to work out who they are on your own.

It usually goes like this...  I ask what line they are calling about, and they recite the number that they just called...  That account isn't with Telstra, you're not going to save me anything.

No, no, we will save you money on whoever it is with...      At this point, I get annoyed - Why are you lying to me ?  Why did you pretend to be from Telstra?  Will you lie to me about the call rates too?

Depending on the salesperson at this point they get pushy and insist that they can help me.  At this point it is my pleasure to shyly admit to them, that perhaps one thing that they could do to help me...  sensing a sale, they ask "What can I do?" to which I gleefully tell them "Well, it would be really helpful if you could go and fuck yourself".

Call me juvenile, but there's something I find terribly amusing about an Indian call center worker saying  "Fuck you too Sir, Fuck you too".

CIO Conference Scammers
As regular readers will know, Tall Emu has recently released a pretty good CRM Software.  There's a group of clowns going around arranging CIO conferences, and the pitch goes something like this...

"Hi, I was just talking to , the CIO of BLUE CHIP CORPORATE NAME HERE and (s)he's asked me to give you a call".

"Oh, really?" says I.. 

The pitch is then given to attend a conference where these unable-to-make-a-call-themselves-high-flyers specifically asked to meet you. This costs a mere $20,000 or so. 

 "No, he hasn't". You're lying.

"What do you mean? He has! I was talking to him the other day, and he mentioned you.  Everybody is talking about Emu,Tall."

Really? Everyone is talking about Emu, Tall?   Our company name is Tall Emu...   You're lying to me - you're reading my name off a list of crm vendors. These people don't know I exist. They haven't asked you to call me. You're trying to scam me into attending a conference, aren't you?

"Oh, wow, Tall Emu, that's a really memorable name!"

She makes a valiant effort to try and sell me, saying that lots of people have been talking about me, and I can meet them at the conference, but she can't tell me who they are (despite name dropping Qantas and AGL) because it's confidential, and she's forgotten.

I explain to her that I had a meeting with Santa earlier in the week, and that I can't tell her what she's getting for Christmas...    Finally I relent and tell her that because she's been a naughty girl lying to nice companies all she'll be getting is a lump of coal.

I also tell her that I admire her persistence, and if she ever wants to earn an honest living rather than scamming people she should give me a call.



[*] If you're a genuine salesperson, you'll find me perfectly reasonable and polite.