Dear Editor
Whenever I phone a business place or if I phone someone who doesn鈥檛 know me, I give my name and state my reason for calling.
However, most of the calls I receive from strangers start, after I鈥檝e said 鈥淗ello,鈥� with the caller rudely asking, 鈥淚s this Christine Pike?鈥� or even more rudely 鈥淚s this Christine?鈥� I want to give a blunt sort of answer, 鈥淪o, who wants to know?鈥� but I politely and loudly ask, 鈥淲ho鈥檚 calling, please?鈥�
I鈥檓 fruitlessly trying to teach telephone manners to the world.
However, I鈥檝e been told that manner also stops scammers for, if I foolishly were to reply, 鈥測es鈥� to the rude question and they were a scammer, they would state that I鈥檇 said 鈥測es鈥� to their compromising questions.
I never speak to a scam call. I just put the phone down and let their voice, real or taped, babble on.
This is why it is so odd that a long-distance provider scam was almost pulled on me. On Thursday, May 20, I could not make one long-distance call. Everywhere I tried I received a busy signal. The cellular phone, however, would work, and long-distance calls to me came through.
I phoned for a SaskTel repair person鈥檚 opinion, using my cellphone, and when I鈥檇 jumped through their unwanted hoops, I finally was able to speak to a repairman. He discovered that I supposedly had a new long-distance provider.
He told me the number to use to get reinstated with SaskTel and the number to phone to discover my new provider.
The automated voice answered, 鈥淵our long-distance provider is YAK.鈥�
Oh, I don鈥檛 think so, boys.
The question is, how did these YAK people do it? And why were my landline phones so clever as to prevent me from using long distance, so YAK didn鈥檛 get any money out of me anyway? And who is YAK?
Oh, they鈥檙e probably located in Saudi Arabia or Timbuktu.
Meanwhile, I鈥檒l be back to my fruitless task of trying to teach telephone manners to the masses.
And the number I phoned to find YAK? 1-700-555-4141. Keep it. You might need it.
Christine Pike
Waseca
