My domain is my business
I was sitting here a couple of days ago when a call came in on my mobile.
It was a UK number so it had to be either a relative or a wrong number, so I answered it cheerfully.
My mistake.
There was a bloke on the other end and he had an accent so thick you couldn’t scrape it off a slice of toast. It took several goes to just ascertain that he had my name correct, but I persevered just out of curiosity. Everything he said I had to ask him to repeat several times. By my reckoning he was only about a week off the boat from Pakistan and I just couldn’t understand a word he said. I don’t know which us us was getting more annoyed. I never discovered what he wanted because in the end, frustration got the better of me. I told him to fuck off and hung up.
Daughter and younger Grandson were here at the time and listening to the one sided conversation. Naturally they were keen to know what the call was about. So out of deference to young minds I didn’t say ‘Fucking Paki with an accent so fucking thick I couldn’t understand him’. What I actually said was ‘Fucking cunt of Indian sub-continental origin with an accent so fucking thick I couldn’t understand him’. One has to be so careful to be Politically Correct in front of small ears these days?
This morning I was woken at the ungodly hour of half nine by my mobile ringing. I was expecting a call so I promptly answered but was still asleep. I grunted. He was another fucking foreigner but at least I could understand him and when he confirmed my name I assumed it was important, though I was still bemused by how he came by my number. He was calling about a domain name I had registered for a friend of a friend [of a friend] a couple of days ago. Maybe he was offering to buy it off me for several thousand quid? But no. He was from some fucking web design company and wanted to know what I intended doing with the site. I told him I hadn’t yet decided whether to build a block of apartments on it or grow hash and I hung up.
Later on this morning I fired up my laptop. No sooner had I fired up my email than I was inundated with emails, mostly from India, offering me web design, search engine optimisation and how to make vast some of imaginary money out of my new domain.
So this is what now happens when you register a domain. You get spammed left right and centre. I have just this instant had a spam text on my mobile offering me a logo design service.
Next time I register a domain I’m changing my details.
I’m now toying with who annoys me the most.
I’ll use their mobile number and email address.
You not use privacy protection then?
That’s fine if you only have a couple of domains but the extra soon mounts up. Simpler to give false information!
For telephone twerps, the best response is an automated system called “Lenny”. This is a series of short clips featuring an elderly Aussie bloke who answers to the name of Lenny. After the initial greeting, the clips are played at random every time there is a pause of more than 1.55 seconds from the caller. The clips are deliberately ambiguous and confusing, even the time when Lenny is interrupted by a flock of ducks.
Basically, this is artificial blithering idiocy, and it generally keeps telemarketers amused for tens of minutes. Poor old Prof Turing will be spinning in his grave…
https://youtu.be/vWrkDOt_IfM
That is priceless! It shows how dogged these people are once they think they have a catch? Nearly twelve minutes before Yer Man loses it! Brilliant!
Yep same thing happened to me last time I registered a domain. I still get emails in my Gmail spambox from a rather polite Indian gentleman enquiring about it. More fool me for using my real contact details. Life was quieter when the only contact the spammers could find for me was ‘Holden Dapenor’ (an early US explorer I am led to believe…l33t speakers will get the joke).
The only two things I have to work out are the email address and [more difficult] telephone numbers. I can invent a number but I would much rather give the number of someone I dislike.
Actually – I just remembered – someone dumped a load of shit in my garden a while back and it included a SIM card [without the chip] so I can use that number! 😈
“Hi,
Hope you are doing great.
We can get your website on page one of Google, yahoo, Bing. Please reply on this e-mail for more info.
Email us back to get a full Proposal.
Kind Regards,
Pintu Kumar
PS: I will be happy to send the “Proposal” and “Pricing” furthermore”
Just got that in my spam box. Mr Penis Kumah, if you’re going to promise me a page one listing then perhaps not send me an email from an ‘outlook’ account? Pro tip: any serious firm would use their domain email not a free account …and who uses Outlook these days? You should have linked me to your Bebo page.