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Congratulations! You have just won $900,000 ....
Fosdick
in its eye are mirrored far off mountainsAlaska, USA Veteran
And it will be delivered to your door within the next two days if you ....
At this point the sage quietly hangs up the phone. In this case, to judge by his speech pattern, the caller seemed to have a developmental disability of some kind so I endeavored to be marginally civil while seeking to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Later I thought, gee, maybe I should have counseled the poor fellow to seek another line of work. What do you think?
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Comments
I think so that job is no good !
Who believes in the dharma 'prime directive' - non interference? Who believes like ISIS and United States of Trump, everything can and should be 'fixed'?
... and back to compassion ... When we are fixed and perfect Buddhas, we might be able to do more by less ...
I will leave that for those more able and willing ...
Sorry, I won't phone you again.
Ice cream is not always a useful bribe....
If it had been ice cream on offer, I would have fallen for it.
Wow - even Alaska isn't far enough to escape the cold call - you can try asking everyone who calls to remove you from their database - in the UK they should comply or can be fined - that said, I currently have an offer for an 8% return on my investment, a new boiler, free broadband for 6 months and no line rental and a number that calls and hangs up no message - at least I'm not being told I just suffered an accident or that there's a PPI pot of cash with my name all over it- small mercies.
Ach, @Zero, the folks who called me were illegal scammers, career criminals - we're all in their database and there's no escaping from it.
A compelling parallel, @lobster - the chief difference between ISIS Co. and Trump Co. and these small timers would seem to be one of scale - we will fix all your problems if you will just .... swallow this hook. It is perplexing to see how many people actually do it.
The people who visit this forum are good folk. Most people are.
For whatever reason some people are bad. Strange but true. 
Some are disruptive, deceiving or deeply self interested to the point of border criminality or worse. 
Some people are involved in bad or unskilful behavour through immaturity, limited life chances, survival, laziness, mental health issues or other reasons/karma.
In the pursuit of dharma we are rising above such lesser inclinations - not excusing or tacitly facilitating. We do not have to fix every new ager, every slick scammer, every ignorant Buddhist, crook politician or phishing [sic] sales rep. We may not be perfect ourselves but we can veer towards better, less stupid, less hateful etc ... In other words we try.
We do what we can. Spreading good will, righteous anger (I duz my best
) or other positive and skilfull use of our capacities. As soon as I recognise a scam call, I interrupt, tell them to remove me from their database and not phone again. Illegal recorded messages I put the phone down on three words or less. Frankly that is my favoured response. 
I have to try to weed out such people during the application process. I just 'declined' an applicant now. Reason for joining: "It seems a great site to meet people and make friends, share experiences. Sign me up!" The business-based email was a bit suspect, and after some digging I found that it's an insurance company targeting individuals with 'specialist needs', such as minority-group "cults", religions, limited-membership organisations.... So, sadly, they won't be joining us any time soon.
But some slip through the net....
You do a great job @federica - thank you!
Thank you @Bunks. I will be the first to admit I don't always get it right [by MY standards, not those of other people...], but my intentions and efforts are honourable.
My apologies to @Federica and to the forum. I did not express myself clearly. When I said that "we are all in (the crooks') database" I was not referring in any way to the forum, but more generally and figuratively to the fact that if we are alive and have any assets, we are of potential interest to criminals. I have the highest regard for the people on this forum in general, and for our esteemed moderator in particular - her abilities are in all ways admirable, her means skillful.
As for my original question, it was rather trivial. My callers, I believe, were practitioners of some variant of the "Nigerian Scam", and were probably after my bank account information. As @lobster observes, some people are bad, most are good. And some, I would add, while wishing to be good, are weak enough to be used by the bad ones to further their ends - such I, quite speculatively, assumed the fellow I talked to be.
But please, everyone, rest assured, I would trust any one of you with the access code for my - my ice cream stash!
(I hope you've got pistachio...I'd break in for that!)
(And thank you for the compliment, @Fosdick. Much appreciated.
)
Of course there are the charitable org scammers. I have been set upon by some real smooth operators of late. Now, when they call about helping the poor vets or cancer victims, etc, I tell them I will not make any commitments over the phone. When (not if) they keep blabbering on, "click". Such people want you to keep talking with them as they probe for a weakness they can use to break your defenses and relieve you of money.
Mercy and compassion for such people are merely weaknesses to be exploited as much as greed is a weakness exploited by the "Nigerian Scam".
Rant now over.
Like @Fosdick, I think you do a very good job of gate keeping @fedrica. Much appreciated.
As for the rest of this motley crew (self included), well, it's nice to know ya.
Opps! Train of thought left me at the station again..oh well.
Back to my cocoa.
Peace to all
Good and bad are relative to whatever game and outcome they're attached to - we all have our part to play and the music doesn't stop so round and round the chairs we go...
We already have that.
@Lionduck said
Case in point: I had a call some time ago from a rather obnoxious character trying to sell me on some investment scheme or other. I told him no ... no ... no... and hung up when he wouldn't stop talking. He called me back immediately and declared in a forceful and angry voice how much he disliked being hung up on.
The upside of this was that I could tell him how bonehead stupid he was for calling back and hang up on him again. Oh what a rare pleasure it was!
:
Two strategies which have worked, on the phone:
1: "Oh, hold on, I'll just get the head of the household. Can you hold a second?"
"Yes, sure..."
Put receiver on table, abandon, ignore, forget about it.
2: "To whom should I send my invoice?"
..."I beg your pardon?"
"Well, I'm an interior Design Consultant. I charge £40.00/hour or part thereof. If you're going to keep me on the 'phone for any time, I'll need to send you an invoice. I'm a professional busy person, you know...."
"Well, we won't be paying you..."
"Oh fine. In that case, Good day."
Put phone down.
If accosted in the street by so called charities looking for you to sign a covenant and pay them by Direct debit, I always ask the salesman/woman:
"How much do you donate per month? because I'll match it...."
Invariably, these are salespeople employed by the company and payed handsomely into the bargain, to recruit donors. They're not PART of the Charity's staff, they're Agency-led, and employed just to gain payers.
So they won't be contributing anything themselves. And the question stops them in their tracks.
As they give nothing, neither will you.
"Sorry to waste 'your' time but I'm not interested thanks!"...
I've tried in particular circumstances to engage them in conversation. They aren't interested. They do this because they see no other choice to make money and when you keep them on the line to converse, they just take offense to your wasting their time. If they are working for someone, they will also get in trouble for too much time on longer calls that do not produce results. One could argue perhaps that is good if they get fired, but, someone else just replaces.
Also, many of them are not English speakers, and know only enough to have been trained what to say via script and if you start conversing otherwise, they are unable to respond. I simply don't answer. If I happen to pick up, I ask them to kindly remove me from their list and hang up. The worst for me are the spoofs, where "you just won a cruise!" calls come from local numbers. I have to answer because my kids use friend's phones and other people's phones to call home sometimes. Scammers don't care if you are polite and ask them to remove you, of course, lol. But since I don't know their intention and do not engage them, I just say the same thing to everyone.
Lastly, remember most of them are just pawns in larger organizations crime schemes. Most of them are people without job prospects and they just want to make money. Most of them who call are not the ones who get the money, they are just paid wages and the people at the top get the large sums. They are like giant, illegal pyramid schemes run by mobs.