Watch out for Water Scammers.

[Chako]

Yesterday, I had a visit from one of those door to door salesman I so detest. However, this one was interesting and I thought I would have a little fun with him. He claimed he was working for the PUC (Public Utility Commission), The PUC are the fine folks that ensure we get clean drinking water, and also charge me for electricity use and sewage. Anyhow, this guy had one of those comical golf shirts with some pseudo Energy company logo on it...but not that of the PUC. Ok. Well I spied a little electrolysis unit with him. Now this is going to be fun as I had an idea where this was going.

He asked if he could come in and test my water. I asked him that he caught me at a bad time. He added that all he would need was a glass of water and a power outlet. I told him I could bring him a glass of water and there was a power outlet out back at my garage (we were under a heat advisory warning and it was brutal out there). I made sure to take my time to get my water in a glass mug for him. 

I finally brought it out for him and he starts to tell me that public water wasn't all that good (I could tell he was an out of towner as most locals knows the West end has the best city water as over half comes from underground springs). He then plugs his little electrolysis unit into the garage and places the unit into my water mug. Wow, amazing that it immediately turned brown...but very little sludge showed up. He asked me if I had a filter...I said yes. He then told me that there was no lead in my water, but that there was some contamination as evinced by some particles that floated on the surface of my water sample. He then went into a power sale for this very expensive water filter that would cost 5 thousand, but that the government had a rebate, and I would only end up spending 900 dollars. Wow, what a great deal!!!!

I played with him for another 20 minutes, asking all sorts of dumb questions. Once he thought he had a sale, I pulled the rug out from under him, explaining to him how electrolysis works, I also told him that in University, we always used inert electrodes as opposed to the highly reactive iron electrode used here. That brown rust stuff is only your iron electrode oxidizing in my fairly clean but salt and mineral content water , I then told him of the dangers of drinking overly pure water for extended periods of time, and that those salts and minerals are good for you, etc. His face fell. I told him thanks for his time, 

In all, I had my fun, and wasted about 40 minutes of his time. Yes, I am evil at times. 

[Crow]

 

[ColoSwiss]

Shame on you!  (tsk tsk)  Wasting that nice man's time.   

[Kev D]

Awesome 

Makes you wonder how many people he conned with that though

[Aloha]

I love it.  Good on you, hopefully he'll think twice before he knocks on the next door. 

[PTRSAK]

In years past I had a couple of favourite games to play with telemarketers.
The first was to see how long I could keep them on the phone without a sale and keep them from bothering someone else and the second rather less PC but much more fun version where you try to make the telemarketer hang up on you. The classic "what are you wearing?" works most of the time but it's not very challenging. One might as well just yell SMURF SMURF SMURF SMURF into the phone until they disconnect.

Asking strange questions vaguely related to the product they are trying to push is a good start, derailing their spiel by saying "Oh, I went there for a holiday once" when they mention the country of origin of the product (or more usually the country of its design, nearly everything in these cases is made in china) is good fun. Going into great detail about the camping ground one stayed in is a good start.

So much fun but I don't have a land line these days so I get very few telemarketing calls.

[Aloha]

I've also had fun with telemarketers in years past.  I would ask them to hold after taking the call to see how long they's actually hold.  I would also break into totally random conversation or tell them my "problems".  Great fun actually. 

[Pacu]

Living in Houston for so many years, moving back to the small town last year, i still never answer the door or answer the phone.

[Steinar]

I talked to a girl once who had worked as a telemarketer herself, and also hated being phoned by telemarketers. Since she knew the business, she would trick them into revealing details on their payment and then proceed to tell them they had a really smurfy deal and were severely underpaid. Both got rid of the telemarketer, sowed seeds of discontent, and hopefully started some noise in the offending companies.

Oh, and good work, Chako!

[Yadda]

 

[gregozedobe]

We just send all our incoming calls to our answering machine.  Some telemarketers can be very persistent and will ring back up to 10 times - but our answering machine is always more patient then them and eventually they give up.