The Elephant in the Room

Well, if you didn't like the other word, you're not going to like this one either.  The Elephant part is to distinguish between these guys and the African Americans.  See, India is known for having lots of elephants, or at least it used to be.  Like I said, though, I would never talk like that to a real person, it's just that I have a long history with those scammers from India.  

I think it started some years ago when the U.S. government started cracking down on the regular spammers, most of which were American based.  They were annoying, but I think most of them were legitimate salesmen.  There was one outfit, though, that promised to reduce your credit card debt for a price, took your money, and did little or nothing more.  I read somewhere that the government finally shut them down, whereupon they sold their software and equipment to pay their legal expenses.  Whoever bought them out was soon back in business, but they moved their operation offshore to evade the long arm of the law.  After that, similar operations sprang up in India and soon came to dominate the market.  Over the years, I have become familiar with their tactics and can usually recognize them.  

The only thing is that I didn't know that there might be other reasons for a dead air phone call like that.  One of them might be if the caller is using a cell phone and happens to be in a "dead zone".  When I get a call like that now, I say, "If there is somebody there, I cannot hear you.  You might try calling from a different location."  Of course this doesn't do anything about the scammers, but my abusive greeting of them has not done any good anyway.  They still keep calling after all these years.  I plan to still greet the live ones with my customary "Shut up and leave me alone!", but I will leave out the elephant part, since it doesn't do any good anyway.  

This experience has inspired me to start a list that I'm calling "The Great Assumptions".  

I've got three so far.  Can you think of any more?  

I:  The gun is always loaded.

II:  The microphone is always on.

III:  There is always someone on the other end of the phone line who can hear you, even if you can't hear them,