I received a blocked call from Susan of the company MFB, she said it was in regards to "business banking" and she wished to speak to the Controller or CFO, since she did not have a name I knew it was a cold call. I placed her on hold to try and gather more information on why she's calling (blocked numbers always make my Reception Sense perk up), she hung up after being on hold for a minute or two and called back saying that she was on hold for forever and wanted to be put through to the Controller/CFO. I told her he was out of the office (truth) and that I could take a message. She asked for his name, I gave her his first name, and then she asked to be put through to his voicemail. I politely declined and said I'd take the message and asked for a call back number "Oh didn't I give that to you the first time?" ... no ma'am... you were doing what all cold callers do and trying to be vague to the point to rudeness (always a red flag), so she gave me this number as her call back number (no extensions at this number she said). My company really does not have time for cold callers, especially ones based out of Arizona... why would we do business with anyone so far away? We have an amazing relationship with the people we currently use, my CFO does not have time to take all these cold calls... he'd have a 2nd job!
Got a call from "Judy Miller" asking for the owner by name. Caller ID said an 800 number. When I told her there was no voicemail and that I could take a message, she wasn't pleased. I asked her what the call was in regards to and she said that the owner knows. She said that she is with "MFB and that 480-273-8807 is her direct line and to please put a star on this note because I have been trying to reach him and this is very important." I do not recall having received a call from her before.
Our owner is too busy for this kind of cold calling. I screen all of their calls; no one gets past me to them especially if they are this vague.
Today, I picked up my company's main line when Jodi (or Judy, not sure) Miller called for our company's president. She knew his full name, but only identified her company as "MFB" and that it was URGENT that she speak to him. We're a small company, but I wasn't initially alarmed that I'd not heard of this company before, as we've been establishing new business collaborations as of late. When my efforts to page the president at his desk failed, I jogged down to his office to let him know that Jodi/Judy was holding for him. He wasn't there, so I returned to my desk and asked for a number where she could be reached. The number given, without an extension (yellow warning lights were now starting to flash in my head), was 480-273-8807.
Sure enough, a bit later, our president told me that Jodi/Judy has left him voice messages several times recently and that he believes the company is not on the up and up, that it could be bogus. He's far too busy to drop everything to speak to cold callers, especially one who has been consistently evasive in her voice messages and who won't identify what in the heck her company does.
I received a voicemail on my office line from Jody Miller at MFB asking to speak with the president of our company. The call was from a blocked number (red flag right there) but she left this 480 number to be reached back at. Her message was quite vague.
Thank you to everyone who posted their experience on here. It makes our job of screening calls for our directors that much easier.