I received a phone call from a man identifying himself as Joe. Joe asked to speak to the president of our company. I asked Joe for his last name. He would not give it to me. I asked Joe for the name of the company he was calling from. He would not give it to me. I then told Joe that the president of our company was not in the office yet and asked if he would like to leave a message for him. He then stated that he was working from our presidents house and needed a way to speak to our president immediately. Feeling slightly wary of the caller, I transferred him to our presidents executive assistant.
When the executive assistant answered the phone she identified herself and asked what she could do to help Joe. Joe told her that he was working on our presidents house and before he could do anymore work he needed to speak to the president immediately. He even gave a detailed description of the work he was doing including wall work and pipe work. Our assistant was concerned but didn't know of any work being done to our presidents home, especially considering she is very close to his family. She then asked to take Joe's contact information and told him she was going to call our presidents wife to confirm the story of the work being done on the house.
Joe then hung up on us.
Now, I've heard of cold callers being sneaky. This caller's script was not just disturbing, but was wrong on many levels. When researched, "Cold caller's must promptly tell you:
* Their name
* Their firm's name
* Their firm's address or telephone number
* The purpose of the call for example, to sell you an investment or investment-related services"
(http://www.sec. Gov/investor/pubs/coldcall.htm)
Luckily we have Caller ID and called the company back to find out their name. Our executive assistant asked to speak to the highest manager concerning a call we just received. The receptionist told her that she needed to speak to "Keith". After some holding time a man named George came on the line. Our assistant told him she wanted to speak to a manager, preferably someone named Keith. George then said Keith was too busy to talk right now but she told him she would wait until Keith was available. She even mentioned that Gerorge, for all she knew, could be sitting next to Joe and buddies.
Keith then got on the line and said he would contact the head person in new York City concerning our call and asked if Joe's voice was high or low because there were 3 Joe's that worked in the office. Our assistant asked if there was any way to trace the call we received back to the caller. We then gave our contact information and asked to be removed from their phone list. They told us they would get back to us. We are considering reporting this to the SEC.
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