2016-01-07 – I am a telecommuter. I work for a company that is located on the east coast, but I work in my basement in Chicago. I’m wired into the company’s computer network and they put a company phone on my desk.

The way things work, I almost never use the phone except for scheduled calls. Even spur-of-the-moment calls are generally set up with a text message: “Are you there? Can I give you a call?” So if the phone rings without advance warning, I can be pretty sure that the call is either a wrong number or an unsolicited sales call. At least twice a week I get a call that starts off—

“Please don’t hang up!”

Are they serious? If I get a call that starts out “Please don’t hang up!” I hang up. Right away. Doesn’t everybody?

Cold calling is a pretty tough business. Getting one or two people to listen to your pitch out of a hundred calls is doing pretty well. I would imagine that the please-don’t-hang-up pitch garners enough extra hang-ups that you’d be pretty much wasting your time to make the calls.

Unless.

You use the please-don’t-hang-up pitch in robocalls to pre-qualify the dumbest and the most gullible of prospects. Anyone who stays on the phone is then treated to the live scam. Whatever it is.

I think I know some politicians who use a similar tactic.