How to strike back at ‘Rachel from Cardholder Services’
Most of my writing I do at home, where it’s usually quiet and with less distraction. Except for the onslaught of political robocalls during the recently concluded swing-state season, about the only robocalls we get are from “Rachel from Cardholder Services.”
If you’ve gotten these you know that it it works like this: “Press 1 to lower your interest rates now!” — and they connect you to a live person.
“Press 2 and your number will be removed from our records!” — which is untrue. I have pressed 2 at least 50 times. It does no good. These are wholly illegal operations, not only because they ignore the national “Do Not Call Registry” but because they’re also scams.
More than one blogger has written about this, and there’s a very good series of posts about how the scam works and the players behind it here. The bottom line is they’re seeking to charge you $1,000 to $1,500 to act as an intermediary between you and the bank that issued your card, to get the latter to lower the rates. Which you can often do all yourself for free.
Because pressing 2 doesn’t stop the calls, months ago I began pressing 1 to talk to the live operator. There were a few reasons. First, I wanted to find out who these people are and where they’re located.
Second, I decided to waste as much of their time as I could. These boiler-room criminals work on commission, and the more of their time you waste, the more money it costs them. (These boiler rooms can easily have monthly operating costs of $75,000 per month.)
Third, I wanted them to leave me alone. I reasoned that sooner or later they would wise up and remove my number so as not to allow me to waste their time any longer. More about that a bit later.
For those reasons I’ve endeavored to keep the reps on the phone as long as I can each time Rachel calls. This involves telling them fibs like 1) “Hold on, I have to go find my wallet, to get the cards;” or 2) “Hang on, let me go get my bills, so I can tell you the balance and current interest rates;” and 4 to 5-minutes waits on the phone.
If you tell them you have 4 different cards you want to reduce rates on, the reps tend to get excited and are more likely to stay on the line, because they charge $1,000 to $1,500 per card they “help” you with. This ploy works on their greed.
And with each call, if you’re skillful, you can learn a little bit more about their operation and waste more of their time. But that involves inventing fictitious balances, fictitious interest rates and fictitious credit card numbers, to play along with their game.
Once, I kept a lady on the line by claiming I couldn’t read the number on the card because “the light is bad.” I had her wait until I’d found a pencil, sharpened it, then found a piece of paper that I furiously penciled across, with the card underneath, to reveal those digits that I was having trouble reading.
Anyway, Friday I got another call from Rachel, and I pressed 1, and that’s how I learned they’re getting tired of me.
I got a gentleman who didn’t identify himself.
“You want to lower your interest rates?” he asked.
“Yes I do!” I replied.
“What is your balance?” he asked.
“Do you want the total of all four cards?” I asked. “Or the individual balances?”
“First, the total,” he said.
“It’s $29,000,” I lied.
“What’s your rate?” he asked.
“For which card?” I replied.
There was a pause, as if he was looking at something. And then he said this:
“Aw, man. Why do you do this?”
“Because I want to lower my interest rates,” I said.
“Why are you calling and bugging us? he said.
“Brother, you’re calling me,” I said. “I just want to lower my interest rates.”
Then he hung up.
What it told me is they’ve created some list of miscreants who accept these bothersome calls for the purpose of bothering these criminals right back. Suddenly, the months of intermittent effort I’ve put into this endeavor felt completely validated.
Now, I can’t wait until Rachel calls back again!
November 17, 2012 - 8:00 AM
Do you not have caller ID? Mine ID’s who’s calling and if it’s them or anyone of their ilk, I don’t answer. If it is truly someone I need to talk with then they leave a message and I call. If it is illegal, contact your congressman, he’ll take care of it.
Thanks! And thanks for the link to On the spot Blog.
Trash calls bad, so is trash mail. Got any hot links for stopping? I’ve called/emailed the worst perp companies, requested they delete my contact info, but seems I’m playing whack a mole instead. (No offense to the moles here–I prefer moles to jerk people.)
Re caller ID: jerks tie up my phone, won’t disconnect until robocall finishes! Not only invasive, but dangerous if I needed the phone in a hurry. So: NO, I want to stop calls altogether.
It’s really fun when you get them to transfer your call to another person, then reinvent yourself as a different person and act confused. For instance, if they call you and know you as ‘Sam from Roanoke’, then when they transfer you to someone else, you become ‘Karen from Wichita’ and change your voice. Drives them crazy and wastes tons of their time.
Fatalistic approach:
“You want to lower your interest rates?”
“What’s the use? We’re all going to die in debt, anyway. Might as well make it as bad as I can. Can you get me higher rates?”
Suicide hotline approach:
“You want to lower your interest rates?”
“No. I just really need someone to talk to. I feel so alone in this world. I just don’t know how much longer I can go on.”
(This method is extremely effective if you can convey your overwhelming melancholy in your voice.)
Racist approach (completely tasteless, but the reactions you get are priceless):
“You want to lower your interest rates?”
“That depends. Is your company run by Jews? Wait. Are you a Jew?”
Way-too-personal approach:
No matter what, keep asking personal questions of the operator. Even if you have to promise to give them more information about your cards in exchange, keep it personal. You should ask about (and tell them about your own) pets, hobbies, children, bizarre fantasies, interest in finding a local BDSM club, if they’ve ever thought about throwing a body off of a bridge, etc. The longer you can keep them on the line, the more bizarre your questions should get. My personal record was just under four minutes; they hung up when I asked if they knew a good way to get bloodstains out of canvas coveralls (with me sharpening a machete on a whetstone in the background – SHHHHHHINK… SHHHHHHINK…).
—————-
Wow. Reading back over this, I just realized that I’m a bizarre person with a twisted sense of humor…
Eh. I’m cool with it.
J.M. White, you’ll fit in just fine at the next blog get-together.
I can honestly say I lol at your comments J.M. White
I speak to them whenever they call, too.
J.M. White,
Four minutes is a good mark for other gonzos to try to top.
I had a friend that enjoyed seeing how long he could keep a pitchman on the phone. He said that asking for explanations and repeats of earlier claims worked best.
Contest time? Honor system?????
I hope I can make it to the next one, Dan. I was upset that I missed the last one.
I was unexpectedly in Alabama to see relatives that weekend. I got to fly there for under a hundred bucks each way, though. Still, I don’t recommend skirting the edge of a superstorm in a Piper Tomahawk if you’re interested in comfort…
…or have a problem with airsickness.
Dave Hicks:
“Contest time? Honor system?????”
I don’t have a land line and don’t get them, but I LOVE to mess with phone solicitors! That is my only regret about giving up the land line. I bet I could top that four minute mark too!
My home phone is through viatalk.com. We’ve had it for several years now and absolutely love it.
Very rarely do we have any calls like these, as viatalk.com has a lot of options for handling them.
Jack, a question: I have Verizon phone / DSL. I don’t think I can have the DSL unless I also have the phone. Does that sound right?
Dan@ 9:09
We had Verizon DSL without having a phone for almost two years until we recently switched to Cox for internet service.
Dan:
In order to have a DSL line, you must have an active phone line. Since Verizon owns the phones lines in this area, you need to use them for both services.
In order to use a VOIP service in place of a home phone, you would need to use internet service from a cable provider. That service is not dependent upon an active phone service. DSL uses copper wire for the service, cable does not. That is why you have to be within range of a central office to get DSL.
Hope this helps!
Dan, I’ve never had DSL, so I’m not sure. I know it users the phone lines, but I’m not sure you have to have the phone service.
I have cable Internet, but no cable TV service.
Love this article. I have been annoying them for years. Since they disguise their number and call from many different numbers it is hard to tell the call is from them until you pick up.
As a day sleeper I found their calls especially annoying. When that was combined with the complete refusal to take me off their list, I decided to get even.
4 minutes is quite a feat. I have only gotten to about 2 minutes. I ran a very similar line to them about 20,000 on several cards and pretended to be hard of hearing, that was my best time.
I also have called and shouted at them in gibberish, spoke only spanish (marque uno para Espanol?), said nothing but profanities, told them I had debt then when asked how much said “oh, wow… 2 or maybe 3 … million” eventually I hope to get on a list of people they don’t call, and it does seem that I get fewer calls now, but still one a month probably.
Perhaps there is something we can do with FDCPA or some of the state laws to get a suit against this annoying unscrupulous company.
I hate robocalls and I don’t answer my phone, but I guess I’m going to take an unpopular position for a change and say…in an environment of very high unemployment, there are doubtless people on the other end of these phone calls who would prefer not to be making them. It’s a crappy, miserable, low-paid job that opens you up to insults and invective 1000 times a day…who’d WANT that job? I cling to my belief that people – if given the opportunity – will prefer work, ANY work, no matter how cruddy – to taking government handouts. I can’t in good faith make fun of these people or do stuff to make their lot more miserable, simply for being the living embodiments of that belief.
#18 I do find Dan’s approach funny and inventive, but I pretty much feel the same way you do, Kristen. I especially object to VVAlock’s approach of yelling obscenities or gibberish at them.
Kristen, these are subhumans. They are rude even if you are polite (e.g. if you ask for a number where you can call them back, they hang up on you. If you ask them to take you off their list, they hang up on you).
It is better, though, to waste their time without wasting yours, e.g. by telling them you have to go find your credit card and then working on the computer, going to the toilet, or even playing a computer game while they wait for you to get your credit card. The bottom line is however that they are vermin, parasites, and thieves, and should be treated like the subhuman dreck they are.
Kristen is right. Don’t fault the workers, fault management for putting them up to it.
The getaway car’s driver does not actually rob anybody, but he makes the robbery possible.
Likewise the boilerroom staff. They have to know it’s a scam. It’s not merely an unpleasant job; it’s a dishonorable job.
Join the office coffee clutches that are playing the “Cardholder Services Game.” Here’s how it works: Generally, your calls come at a predictable time–I usually get at least two a day, one around 10:30A to 11:00A and the other around 3:00P. After you answer and punch in 1 to “talk to a live person,” the trick becomes how long you can keep them on the line. Our office usually allows 8 minutes base time and then we make bets. For every minute you can keep them on the line over eight minutes, the bettor against you pays you $1.00 per minute. For every minute below 8 minutes you pay $1.00. So far, it is usually close to a push; eight minutes being like a magic number. However, one of our stars managed to keep some nice redneck lady on the horn for 28 minutes!
The fun part is in the creativity of the call’s recipient. Some of the calls have been hysterical. Remember, most of the people you are talking to couldn’t get jobs flipping burgers or working as baristas so they wind up working for these sleaze merchants.
Play the game often. You’ll be tying up their lines and people and you’ll be doing the Lord’s work!.