Addendum...

[feren]

I also wonder how it is we found out this joker was working for the competition. Was she or he so inept they admitted up front "Hi, I work for your direct competitor, would you mind telling us about your newest technology initiatives?"

Or did something get said wrong and set off warning bells in somebody's head? If so, how did they find out this person works for the other company? What sort of sleuthing was done to find that out?

Comments

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

We also got e-mail at work reminding us not to volunteer information to strangers just because they say they're working with so and so, etc. Seems like a common thing for competitors to try and recruit right out of someone's structure.

[captain18.livejournal.com]

We had a scam hit our building several times in a short window...

Basically, the caller would ask for the "control room" and say they were from the "corporate office". They would ask what kind of printer was in use and then reply that the answer matched their records. Then they would ask for the supervisor, say that they were from some company or other, that their [insert printer name gained from last person] was dead and they had a handful of toner carts they wanted to get rid of cheap and could they send them on over to us.

What was particularly insidious was the manner in which they misrepresented themselves to people who are easier to take advantage of, and then misrepresented themselves fresh to the supervisor -- whatever angle that will work best with the level of person they're talking with.

What made them particularly easy to catch was the fact that the printer they talked someone into telling them about was a rebadged Lexmark, and I had always represented the printer in documentation as a Lexmark, so for someone to call and say they had supplies for a Memorex-Telex printer, they pretty much gave the game away right off the top.

They were particularly rude, too, when I confronted them after they'd tried it for the third time in two weeks. I told them I didn't want their toner even if it was free, at which point I was accused of doing a poor job at saving the company money, and when I told them to take me off their calling list, he claimed there was no list!

Badgering toner salesmen has become entertainment now. How sad.