Holiday Ale Follow-Up/Fraud Alert

I almost bit on a telemarketing scheme last night. If Amanda hadn't been in the background telling me to hang up, I might have gone through with it.

A woman called at 7 PM telling me my name had been picked to win two 7-day vacations, one to Orlando and the other to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It was a weirdly late time to call, especially since she was calling with a NY area code, making her time 10 PM. She said she represented the raffle booth from the Holiday Ale Festival, where I dimly remember filling out a card to win a vacation. But I was like seven or eight samples in at that point so the memory is pretty fuzzy. She went through each trip in depth, including the side packages I had won, like golf vouchers and a spa package. She even talked me through the downside, that I'd have to sit in on a hotel tour at the Orlando hotel, which was part of the marketing deal. Then she said I'd need to give up my credit card to pay for a $199 processing fee for each person going on the trip.

The whole conversation was so friendly, and her tone was so perfect - I heard in her voice some weariness, like she'd heard people celebrating this kind of thing before. But like she could also still understand my joy, that this trip was really going to be an incredible gift. She laughed conspiratorially when I said my girlfriend would love the spa package, and she listened to me babble when she first called, trying to get a hold on what was happening. She was clearly a native English speaker, and clearly well educated, and she sounded so unwaveringly reasonable. So when she told me I had to give my credit card number or hang up the phone, I stayed on and tried to bargain with her for another ten minutes. I outlined my suspicions, which she talked me through, and sounded genuinely hurt that I would deny myself such a prize. When I finally hung up, I did so still 50% sure I was passing on an opportunity that I would never see again. It was only when I googled the phone number and read the testimonies of 20 or 30 people who had been approached by this same person, that I understood how close I was to being fleeced. And I'm not even a senile shut-in!

Now, looking back, I can't stop thinking about who this caller is. How was she recruited for the job? How long did it take for her to get this convincing? Is she an actress and it came naturally, or did she spend months developing this poise? And, what I really can't get out of my head, her coldness. How she could be so calm, lie to me again and again, and let me hang up so politely. She was incredible, a smooth and supple practitioner of her craft.

I can't help thinking that a profile of one of these callers would be such an incredible magazine piece. It would have to be anonymous, probably, but to hear her take on fraud and the morality of it, and the unique skillset needed for such a job, would be fascinating. So now I'm really hoping I get a call like this again, and that I have the presence of mind to understand what's happening while it's happening. Of course, the other, more rom-com outcome would be a romance sparked out of telemarketer fraud. That's a script that's waiting to be written.