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Some rani with a dense South Asian accent sitting in a noisy call center had the misfortune of drawing my transfer last Friday, right after the familiar "bloip" sound and my having to trigger that response with my own verbal noise. I never say "hello" anymore, just something guttural expressing my exhaustion from obvious fraud calls.

Short version, we argued for a few minutes over the true purpose of the call. "Sherry" declared it a "survey" conducted "for doze who are having peen and svel-ling so that dey can get relief frohm it". She harped on the "pain and swelling" and "relief" points several times; must be the script's bait lines. I countered that it already sounds like a revamp of the "back brace" hawkers who were torturing the nation a few years ago. I also explained that an alleged "survey" which feeds a sales campaign is just as much a violation of the TCPA and TSR as the selling. But she doggedly insisted this was "nawt a sales caaall".

I pressed for how she connects to us her company's sudden concern for "pain and swelling". "Sir, it may be yooou, ... or someone on your behalf might have applied online to receive in-fuh-mation?" She's still holding her friendly tone while objection handling, I'll give her that credit. But I wish I had ten dollars for each time I've heard the "you or someone else asked for this annoyance" smokescreen.

She had asked for a household member correctly by first name, always distressing but not hard to discover from Ye Olde Residential Phone Directory. Trouble is, her BPO's dialer rang a DNC-registered number which I never, ever disclose to medical providers, or much anyone else. I had genuine trouble comprehending her as she gave a company name of "E-mule Med-ee-cal", my subsequent guess being "Immune Medical".

I've made some search runs with what little intel I have, hoping to at least find other examples of the same scheme. Maybe it's too early in the game, lucky me. I was too irritated to probe the princess well enough, but it's all playing like my first guess, a come-on to sell me some DME behind the primary care doc's back. Maybe this time it's compression garments, ortho shoes, and/or heat wraps, no doubt of such horrid build quality as to make any "peen and svel-ling" condition worse.

Keep watching the skies ....