It’s Sunday afternoon, and I’m taking it easy and enjoying a quiet day at home with the kids. Watering my plants, making lunch, checking in at my forum from the laptop… that kind of thing.
And then the phone rings.
It was some kind of operator who was asking my permission to connect me to a phonecall. The call was being made by someone online, who was typing their end of the conversation. The operator would type my response to them, and read their message back to me.
I have no idea who the caller was - someone in Africa is all I was told. The operator would say “go ahead” after each message he read, and instructed me to say “go ahead” at the end of my response to that message. It was very much like talking through a CB, LOL - really weird.
The “caller” (actually, the typer) wanted my Yahoo ID and seemed insistent on speaking with me. I just found the whole thing very odd - especially since it’s easy enough to find an email address for me and just contact me directly.
I didnt catch the name of the service they were using. I finally got frustrated with the whole thing and ended the call (over and out!). Very strange. Have you ever heard of such a thing, or received a phonecall like this?
Tags: strange, go ahead, relay phonecall, relay service, phone relay
6 responses so far ↓
Terry // Jun 26, 2006 at 2:45 am
I think you were talking to a relay operator for the hearing impaired Lynn. I was a relay operator *years* ago, and that’s exactly the process that you described.
Caller (hearing impaired person), types their message–ending with ‘Go ahead’ so that both the operator and the person being called know that it’s their turn.
Telephone operator reads that message to the ‘hearing’ person with the end “Go ahead”
The hearing person responds, the relay operator types word for word what you are saying to the hearing impaired person, ending with ‘go ahead’ so that the other party knows it’s their turn to speak.
The operator should have made sure that you (the person receiving the call) had a full understanding of what was happening though and that you were talking to a hearing impaired person with a telephone operator listening/typing the entire convo.
Did the operator identify herself/himself as a relay operator for the hearing impaired? The terminology may be different now, it was eons ago for me lol.
Africa? Highly possible. I handled calls from my part of the world to all over the world (favorite was reaching the caller’s family in some hut/home/store/restaurant that sold live roosters or something out of the hut/home/store/restaurant somewhere in Asia–MOST FUN EVER! lol).
I *loved* that job but the shift work killed me :).
Robert Ragan // Jun 26, 2006 at 7:04 am
Hey, that African ambassador that always e-mails me was trying to contact you and give you millions. I’m sure that was it.
I used to work in a call center and people who were deaf used a service like this. It is a very sloooooow conversation as they type their message, the operator read it to you, you answer, then the operator types your message to them, etc.
That’s what this reminds me of.
However, the part about wanting your Yahoo ID is kind of a red flag.
For what it’s worth…
Lynn Terry // Jun 26, 2006 at 8:45 am
The words ‘deaf’ or ‘hearing impaired’ were never used, but that makes sense. The strange thing about the call was the odd requests for personal information - including my Yahoo ID. I suggested they email me directly, which was ignored and followed by more persistent requests for personal contact.
It was all very strange.
Empress // Jun 26, 2006 at 11:01 am
That would have been an odd call - my first thoughts on this was it for the hearing impaired… but if they made no mention of it… and the insistancy of your yahoo id, would leave me wondering what kind of scam do they have going on? Also having the call made from Africa… leaves me wondering how many millions you have waiting for you from some long lost dead relative or political leader
Lynn Terry // Jun 26, 2006 at 11:48 am
I honestly dont know…
Gut feeling on it wasnt so great, but I could be wrong. I never did recieve a follow-up email from the caller, which left me wondering about the purpose of it all.
Dan Reinhold // Jun 27, 2006 at 9:28 am
Well, it was definitely the service mentioned by Terry.
And there’s no law I know of that says deaf folks can’t operate scams too.
That person had to have access to the equipment used by deaf subscribers (to the equipment service, not to you!) in order to contact you that way.
After waaaaaay too many years as a human services professional, I can honestly say that there’s also a strong undercurrent of entitlement in the disabled population. Some are pretty adamant that the non-disabled conform to them and always to them. I hope that wasn’t the case.
Leave a Comment