Energy Company scammer tests my bot several times, is convinced it is a real person

Do you get tons of unsolicited calls from energy companies telling you they can save money on your energy bills? This is a common problem across the USA. It reminds me of the old “long distance slamming” scheme from the 90s where long distance telephone companies would convince you to switch with great introductory rates, or hide a bunch of fees in the fine print. This is even easier than the “green energy” scams because they just change your provider behind the scenes and your current energy provider handles the rest. I am confident that it will eventually get worked out, but in the meantime, we are treated to these incessant calls.

So back to this call! The telemarketer on the phone is a little suspicious at first – she thinks it might not be a real person (especially since my bot ironically asks HER that question). What follows is a hilarious “Turing Test” where she tries to determine if by bot is a real person or not. From Wikipedia,

The Turing test is a test, developed by Alan Turing in 1950, of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.

Now, when you think about it, my bot could just be a person pretending to be a bot. So that’s like a person exhibiting behavior indistinguishable from a robot. And once that’s in her head, how do you convince her otherwise?

Eventually she decides she’ll call back and see if I respond the same way. Unfortunately, if she did call back, it didn’t make it over to me.

Now, in the caption of this call, I refer to her company as an energy scammer. Technically, this company is operating completely legally (well, the act of calling in the first place may not be legal). So if you work for an energy company that does this, you might be tempted to defend your business practice. But there are so many charlatans operating in this space that your legitimate operation is getting drowned out by scammers. You might want to do something about that. I am.

Please sign up for the Jolly Roger Telephone service and you can send all your telemarketers to my bots! It’s only $6 per year!

Please enjoy this call, and thanks for listening!

Roger