A couple times a week a number will show up in my caller ID that reads "Out of area" or "Unavailable."  Whenever I see this in my caller ID I always answer the phone in an East Indian accent, because invariably the person on the other end is a Pakistani trying to sell me something.  Being a professional musician my entire life, I have spent more than my fair share of road time in cheap motels.  95% of these motels are run by East Indian people.  Needless to say I've gotten pretty good at the accent.  Someday I will come up with a script to try to sell something back to them.  But I digress....

After chatting with several East Indian solicitors (called "Haji" from now on), I decided that I would record one of them.  The following .mp3 files are the result of an edited down version of one of those call sessions.  I say "session" because he called back several times.  The original, unedited version of these calls added up to almost 1/2 an hour.  I edited these calls down to about 18 minutes total.  I tried to include just the highlights

Sysnopsis: Some guy claiming to be named David or Danny from the "Credit Repair Department of Home Order" was calling to sell me a service that would "repair" my credit rating.  Apparently, according to Haji (I don't think his name was really Danny), Rashad Abu Adya (my made up name) has "less than excellent credit" that is in "need of repair."  Fortunately for me (or "Rashad" as it were), Haji claimed he could repair my credit for a mere $495.00 (via the "rapid program"), or $669.00 if I go with the longer, more-convenient payment plan.  The irony being that, in order to repair my credit rating, they would have to extend credit to me..funny.

This first .mp3 file is the first part of the first call.  Keep in mind that the first voice which says, "Hello.  And how am I to be helping you today?" is me.  Click on the picture of Haji below to hear the first call.


                              First call - Haji-1

As you can hear by my last statement, I tried to end Haji's call prematurely.  I had allowed Haji to tell me everything he could do for me without letting him get to the sales pitch - the part where he asks for money.  You hear me say "Shukran," which is Indian for "Thank you."  You will also notice that I try to point out to Haji, several times, the irony of extending credit to me in order to fix my credit rating.  I don't think he ever really got it.

As you can imagine, Haji wasn't ready for me to hang up yet.  click on the picture of Haji below hear a continuation of the first call.


                  2nd segment of the first call - Haji-2

At this point Haji guarantees that he can raise my credit rating to 720.  Since, at the time of the call, I had no outstanding debt (other than my house) hadn't applied for a credit card in years and have never made a late payment on anything, my credit is pretty good.  Last time I checked it was like 790.  Haji was going to "fix" my 790 rating to 720.  And all this for a mere $669.00.  You probably also noticed that he stated, with no uncertainty, that my credit rating is below 720 - not MY credit, mind you, but the credit of my made up character, Rhashad...again, funny.

In the following .mp3 file I point out Haji's clairvoyant abilities by pointing out that I am a guest in the house he has called, so how the hell does he know what Rhashad's credit rating is?  He assures me that the credit bureau has transferred my (Rhashad Abu Adya) file to him.  Hilarious.  If you listen closely, Haji says many ridiculous things.  He sites that property values are going down (like that has anything to do with MY credit rating).  And in the first segment, he astutely points out, "Where there's a night, there's a day."  Very wise, this Haji.

Throughout this next segment I ask Haji many times for the total cost of the service he is providing.  He never tells me.  In fact, he out-and-out lies, siting that the total cost is "only $195.00."  He never actually spits out a total cost.  There's probably some company policy in place which tells these guys to avoid telling the customer the "total cost" at ALL costs.  You'll hear how he actually has me break out a calculator so I can come up with the total on my own.

Please click on the picture of Haji below to here a continuation of this phone call.


            Third segment of the first call - Haji-3

In this next segment you will hear my reaction to the total cost, which is $669.00.  Unfortunately, just before I wigged out, you can hear the door bell ring.  My mother was at the door bringing me soup or something.  I tell Haji that someone's at the door and to please hold.  However since he never shuts his mouth, he never hears me say that I'm leaving the room.  He continues to talk to an empty room for about 30 second while I greet my mother.

After returning to my office he tries to point out that having a better credit rating insures a lower interest rate on a loan - which is true.  I like how he sites a $50,000.00 "bike" as an example.  I can only hope he meant a "motorcycle," and could imagine that he thinks we all purchase our motorcycles from Orange County Choppers.

Towards the end I grow tired of the call.  Haji tells me he's going to put me on hold, and "Please don't hang up."  I whole-heartedly agree to hold and then immediately hang up as soon as he puts me on hold.  When he calls back I claim that a dead battery caused the disconnetion.  I was actually looking for another cassette tape for my recorder.  Since I was running around looking for a tape while chatting with Haji, I didn't get to record that minor part of our phone conversation.

Please click on the picture of Haji below to here a continuation of this phone call.


              Final segment of the first call - Haji-4

Less than a minute later Haji called back.  As previously mentioned, I had run out of tape in my tape recorder, so I went off to find another tape.  Not recorded is 3 or 4 calls.  In these calls I claim that the battery in my phone is dying.  I then hang up the phone mid-sentence.  I finally got a tape in the recorder and wrote a script for a program on my computer called "TalkAny."  Basically you type in a phrase and the program tries to speak the text you typed in.  You will here the computer talking.  I purposely picked a tone that would be hard to hear.  Below is a copy of what the computer is saying:

At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this page.  If you have any comments or anything to add, just click the e'mail link below.

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