Is your refrigerator running?

I picked up the phone on Friday - a call-in from Alaska - and gave the "incoming call" script for name, company, monitoring notification, and "how can I help you?"

"BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRPPPP!!!!!!!" Hoots of laughter, and a hangup.

Our senior collector turned around. "I heard that from here - that wasn't from Alaska, was it?"

"It was - why?"

He shook his head. "Oh great - another one of THOSE again."

"Those" being one of the rare prank callers we get. Collection agencies aren't usually magnets for crank calls, since most anyone who has our number is trying to avoid us like the plague. And with most people having caller ID these days, no one wants to risk a crank call to someone who will now know who you are and use that information against you.

We did get one entertaining one a few months ago. Phone rang, and it was an area code I didn't recognize. Picked up the phone, heard maniacal laughter and street noise, then a hangup.

Generally when someone calls in, the caller ID will bring up their account information immediately. If not, we have to search for the number in the system. In this case, it listed no account attached to that number. Then you have to document that it was a call-in with no attached account, and get the dialler to allow you to move on. It is about as time-consuming as it sounds.

As I was searching for the number, our manager stood up. "Wait - how many of you are documenting a Yonkers number right now?"

"Yonkers?"

"914."

Turns out four of us, with an incoming call to the fifth. Six of us were on that evening, and that last person was talking to a borrower. So this person in Yonkers had effectively shut down our department with maniacal laughter and hangups.

Benny, the first person to get the call finished documenting the hangup, and his window flashed yellow for incoming call. "Oh crap - it's him again. Same number."

Manager picked up the phone and tried to get the person to talk, but no answer other than the laughter and hanging up. Then on to the second one - around the horn again.

"Okay - nobody answer that call. I'm calling the dialler department to see what we can do. This is insane." And with that she was off.

We all left our windows open to after-call. One person finished documenting the borrower call, and his window lit right up and we heard the laughter through the headset. So our department was shut down for about ten minutes while we waited. Finally, our manager came down.

"They ran the number and it isn't in any system at all. We did a 411 search and it's not listed, so they're re-routing it to a special line upstairs and calling the phone company to find out where it's coming from. But it's safe to dial again."

A few minutes later someone from the dialler department came down. "It's a pay phone out in Yonkers somewhere. We put in a harassment complaint, and the phone company said they were dispatching a police officer to the phone location to have a chat with the person there."

Ten minutes later I get a phone call, and pick it up. Loud maniacal laughter, and a hangup. "It's him again," I called out to the manager. "Laughing guy."

"But the dialler department blocked the number! How is he calling in again?"

Our senior collector laughed. "How much you want to bet it's the payphone a couple blocks down the street?"

"God DAMMIT! No one answer anything from Yonkers." And with that, our manager was off to the dialler department at full speed.

Turns out the phone company requested a police officer at the offending phone, and another one at the next public payphone down the block, which seemed to cut things off for the rest of the evening.

In the case of the Alaska call, it did bring up an account that claimed this was a wrong number a couple of days before. I documented the belch, and sent an internal e-mail to the collector responsible for the account to take a close look at it. We'll see how that worked out for them in a couple of days.