Was it Something I Said?

Or The Day I Made an Obvious Scammer Run For the Hills

If you've spent any time at all on this blog, then you already know I have a very dim view on scams and scammers. In a previous life (and a previous position), I worked as a Fraud Analyst. Wild guess on what the job entailed...

Flash forward to... yesterday... actually and a few times last week, when I got called at first by a very convincing sounding, AI named "Jessica". This AI was very well equipped, polite, and very natural sounding. Alarmingly natural-sounding, actually. I alerted the local hydro company about it, and then I got to thinking.

Jessica was very persistent, you see, it would call every day even after I told it not to. So, I waited for the lull between calls to end and, sure enough, yesterday I got a call. This time it was a real person and was able to have a short talk with the person. I asked some pointed questions, but he was insistent, despite the questions to book that visit.

All right, fine, let's book this.

So, I booked it for today at 5.

And They Didn't Show Up.

It's now well past 6 pm, over an hour after the booked appointment, and I have not heard anything from them. No one has shown up. No one has called, not even a courtesy call to let me know that their scammer will be late to my door.

I am now actually quite annoyed at this.

I mean, I didn't expect much from an obvious scam, but I went through the trouble of making sure the cameras were set up and set to roll from a touch on my phone and the mikes were ready. I had my list of questions to ask, and even the website alert from the OEB regarding the scam to confront them with.

It's a bit of a letdown, honestly.

I was truly looking forward to that impromptu interview.