Dodgy phone call from a real estate agent...

@lingli_78 (12821)
Australia
March 6, 2008 9:28pm CST
As many of you know from my previous post that i am still recovering after being hospitalised for 4 days last week... well, i just receive a phone call from a real estate agent about 5 minutes ago asking whether i would like an appraisal for my house... the lady is telling me that it will take less than 10 minutes and they will be able to tell me how much my house is worth now... the funny thing is, she gets all my details wrong... my name, my address and everything... and when i asked her where does she gets my phone number, she says that she gets it from the white pages... that is really weird because i never register my phone number and address in the white pages... she also asks me my address... well, i am a bit weary at this stage and hesitant to tell her my address... she says that she will call me again sometime next week to arrange the time to meet... i just want to know have any of you experienced this before??? does it sound dodgy to you??? what do you do??? thanks in advance for responding and have a good day everyone...
2 people like this
1 response
• United States
7 Mar 08
This is definitely a scam. When she said that she got your name, address, and phone number from the white pages, I would have told her that I never listed it, and asked again how she got my number. When you press for information, its scares these type people away. Not that I believe that the conversation would have gotten that far if it were me, when she asked what my address was, instead of giving it to her, I would have stated that if she got my phone number from the phone book, why doesn't she have my address already. Again, a few simple, direct questions that poke holes in the scammer's spiel, and they melt away into the mist. When she calls back use this technique, and if she doesn't hang up on you afterwards, tell her to take you off her calling list, you no longer wish to be contacted by their firm. If calls still persist, find out what next steps need to be taken in order to prosecute, if any. I know in the United States we have a national "Do Not Call" list for telemarketers. If a person is still contacted by telemarketers after signing up to this list, and alerting a particular company to stop calling because of this, we have a phone number where we can report the repeated calls. I don't know if you have something similar in Australia, but it something that is worth looking into.