WTF EX

Dinner is done. Cleaned all the dishes. The wife is doing some video work. I’m done playing video games for the day, after a frustrating round of re-playing a section in 3D Dot Game Heroes due to the PS3 freezing. Already read some manga (I just read volume 16 in Bleach). Doing some preliminary post-processing on podcast audio for editing tomorrow.

Guess I’ll write a short blog entry!

So the other night I was wired on coffee in the late evening. When I’m wide awake at night and should otherwise be sleeping, I usually pop some podcasts into my ears to occupy some brain cycles — I at least feel like I’m being halfway productive if I’m listening to something. I had cruised through the most recent episode of Buzz Out Loud, and while I was not OHMYGODTIRED, I was sleepy enough to roll over and give it the ol’ college try.

Within moments, I was OHMYGODTIRED, and felt myself dozing off…

… until I, very loudly and as clear as day, heard a female voice shout “PRINTER!” what felt like directly into my ears, which shook me away in a rather large bout of fright.

It certainly wasn’t the wife. My bet is on aliens.

While on the way to work (at precisely 8:21 am), I received a call from “Unknown” which I promptly ignored. They left a message (as I expected they would), so I checked it out. Below is a transcription of that (pre-recorded) message:

Hello. Today is Monday, December 15th. We are calling regarding an important, personal business matter. This call is NOT a sales or solicitation call and requires your immediate attention. Please return this call before end-of-business Tuesday, December the 16th, to 1-877-857-9756. You may return this call between the hours of 8 AM and 9 PM eastern standard time. Again, that number is 1-877-857-9756. Thank you.

Please note today’s date. Yes, today is January 21st… not December 15th. There’s strike number one. OK, fine. Strike number one was even calling me in the first place, and this was a strike after many strikes within the actual voice message. But still… seriously? And you’re calling before your actual “business hours” even start…?

When you Google around with the phone number, you get a variety of responses on forums and “Who called me?”-type sites. Some claim it’s a scam, some claim it’s a hijacked (but legitimate) number, some claim it’s a debt collection agency, etc.

Being that I don’t exactly owe anyone any money, that’s certainly not the case with me.

I received a couple of these a few months back, but with personal voice messages as opposed to this pre-recorded one. While en-route between the ceremony and reception for the wedding of a couple friends a couple months back, I decided to actually return the call from that previous annoyance. A very grumpy lady answered with no identification. I explained to her that I kept receiving calls from this number and I would like them to immediately cease. She asked me to confirm my phone number. I told her that if she was unable to see which number I was calling from, there was little chance that they were any sort of legitimate organization and I had no desire and was under absolutely no obligation to divulge any information about myself. She (obviously) started getting very angry, and refused to identify herself or her organization despite my repeated attempts at asking, claiming they “represent” many organizations. I ended up hanging up on her since I was getting nowhere, and I hadn’t received any calls from them since.

I wonder if this is the same place, or if I am just cooincidentally getting hit up again? I know there has been yet another disastrous credit leak due to a keylogger inside the Heartland systems, so everyone should be on their toes with nonsense like this.