I got a call earlier this evening, where the caller ID said Lancaster, OH. Since I know some folk around there, I answered. The call, from a very pleasant woman’s voice, was about a cancer charity I’d never heard of that said it helped folk suffering from cancer with food, medicine, household help. The first pitch / ask was for $30 to $50, asking if I would be able to help at that level. There was an appropriate pause, where I said that I really didn’t view sickness quite the way most folk do.
The response was not to that comment, but as though I had said that was too much money – definitely an off-kilter response, and lowering the ask to $20 to $30. . Her tone was still very conversational and friendly, not sounding scripted and stiff, but I now knew it was a robo-call, so I started talking and said that. The now-obvious script just went on. So I hung up.
This is interesting – with one good voice and a robo-call set up and list, this probable scam can pull in tons of money, maybe legally as a non-profit, but giving only a small portion to charity. Or more likely a total scam illegally taking all the dollars.
The political robo-calls are going to have to do better. They sound stiff and scripted, even when they are from our wonderful Senator Sherrod Brown. And the same calls / script are often used several times to the same number. The scammers probably don’t make those mistakes.