I Confess: It was 866-266-9317 And I Answered

Knowing that another call from 866-266-9317 would be coming as sure as the Sun would rise, I had some time to ponder my next move.

Another call from these annoying idiots came Saturday and I did not pick it up since I had not decided on my plan of action quite yet. Who knew that telemarketers have so much work that they need to work on weekends? There must be many more people out there that need to be annoyed than I had dared to imagine!

I distilled my options for dealing with the next call down to two: I would either yell obscenities at them and tell them to never call me again and hang up or politely ask them to put me on their “Do Not Call” list.

I settled on option two because I knew it would greatly improve my chances of getting some information from whatever unfortunate telemarketing monkey was connected to the outgoing call that was bound for my telephone.

Sure enough, at about 10:20 this morning the telephone rang and that familiar number, 866-266-9317 appeared on my Caller ID display.

The woman on the other end sounded a bit soft-spoken and may have even been someone who was not enjoying her job much.

It also seemed that our connection was not that great, and although I could hear most of what she said, there were times when it was hard to make out what she was saying.

Not surprisingly, she asked for me by name and I told her she was talking to the person she was seeking.

She then launched into her sales pitch, which was quite brief. It started with the obligatory “I’m calling on behalf of CitiMortgage” and then she mentioned a “special offer” and asked if I wanted to hear more about it.

At that point I said, “Can I ask you a question?” and she said “yes.” I then asked if she would do be a “special favor” and put my name on their “Do Not Call” list and never call me again.

She agreed immediately and informed me that it may take “30 days” to get my name off the list and in the meanwhile, I may get a call or two. And of course she said she was “sorry” for the phone calls. Yeah, I bet.

I then told her that I hoped I would not receive any more calls and she then rattled off something which I did not totally understand, but ended with her reading me a phone number: 800-474-4047.

I believe the gist of it was that I could call that number if I wanted to complain to someone about the phone calls.

I then asked her what company she was working for and she started with the “I’m calling on behalf of CitiMortgage crap again.” I then told her that is not what I wanted to know and asked her what company is she actually calling from.

During this point in the call, it was kind of hard of hear her, but she said something like “Influence” or “Enfluence.” I asked her to repeat the name and when she did it sounded like the same thing and it seemed like our connection was getting worse, so I thanked her and said goodbye.

My first action upon hanging up the phone was to plug 800-474-4047 into a search engine and see what came up. Sure enough, a company called “Ocwen” came up as the owner of that number. They are somehow involved in the mortgage business and most likely have some relationship to CitiMortgage.

These big companies probably like having lots of smaller companies in their structure in case they get caught screwing over consumers or something and they can just throw that smaller company and its employees to the dogs and perhaps avoid tarnishing the name of the parent company as much. That’s just speculation on my part, of course.

The first Ocwen web page I was directed to as a result of my search (www.ocwencustomers.com/InsuWarnt/more_warr.cfm) advertises insurance and home warranty plans. That ties in with what I had heard about these phone calls being a pitch for some warranty plan for appliances or something.

I guess I don’t have to mention what I would suggest Ocwen do with their stupid warranty plan.

Although it was not an extensive search by any means, I poked around on the net looking for a reference to a company called “Influence” or something like that, but came up with nothing.

I suspect the company in question is some big telemarketing company that makes their living by bothering people. If anyone has any information on that company, feel free to leave a comment and let me know. It’s kind of fun to find out the names of the outfits that are doing stuff like this.

This all comes back to what a crappy outfit CitiBank is. The reward I get for having my mortgage sold to those pinheads is being annoyed by telemarketing calls for crap I don’t want and would not even consider.

Once again, you can be damn sure my next mortgage will not wind up in the hands of CitiMortgage. They just suck too badly to ever do business with again and I’ll be sure to go out of my way to tell others to avoid them like the plague, no matter what kind of service they may be offering.