Yeah, not the scammers, but one of your partners, Insight. The gentleman on the phone kept referring to himself as an employee of Microsoft and was asking about our planned Office 365 migration, which happened 4 years ago. At that point, I started asking if he was really from Microsoft. He finally said that he works for a partner and eventually hung up on me.
I’m not sure if you evaluate your partners or not, but to misappropriate who they are when they are cold calling us, that’s pretty low. If you feel I should reach out to the company myself, I can do so.
5 Spice ups
Yes, those are annoying! But if you want to get even, the next time they call, tell the person “Good you called, I was waiting for the call!”, then tell the person “hold on, let me transfer the call to my desk”, come back after 15 minutes, if the person still there, say “almost there just a seconds please”, come back after another 15 minutes, if the person still there, he or she deserves another 15 minute on hold, I bet you would not be there. 
2 Spice ups
colinkent
(Colin Kent)
3
Have a heart…
The poor bloke was most prob told he was on a sure thing job with OTE of 80-100k
Little did he know he was going to be given a list of numbers to cold call trying to flog last years projects
Insight are also a MS Rhodium level partner…
1 of only 60,000 world wide.
1 Spice up
It’s a scam. I’ve had them try this one me. I toiled with them just for kicks
1 Spice up
Scam. I get the same calls from scammers pretending to be from Dell, HP(E), Cisco, etc. They all get the standard “We don’t divulge that type of information” to every question they ask. Eventually they hang up.
These days, the marketing is hard and heavy, and because of Linkedin and other sources, callers can have a larger than ever before file on your company before they ever call you. I find that the phone has become unanswerable any more. If you’re not already in my contacts, then you can leave a message. If I want to, I will call you back. Gone are the days of diligently returning every call. I simply can’t, and wouldn’t want to, given that the caller is most likely going to pepper me with questions, probing for an angle to sell me his products or services. As another responded, “We don’t divulge that kind of information”, In today’s world, any and all information is “that kind”. Best that you don’t even respond in any way at all. If you even so much as answer the phone to say “no”, you have made yourself a ‘live fish’ and they will hang on to your information for years.
3 Spice ups
I’m more upset by the misrepresentation and deception that was used. I would assume that Microsoft doesn’t encourage their partners to use this tactic?
Scam, they do a disservice to the company that they claim to represent.
Microsoft isn’t really involved in this, in all probability. I’m sure they don’t condone it, and aren’t necessarily aware of it, either. Most likely, they drop Microsoft’s name merely as a hook to get you interested.
djac
(Alan Cross)
10
I have received this exact phone call myself. While it is not a ‘scam’, it can be thought of as misleading. A lot of the people making these calls are ‘reps’ or ‘liaisons’. They are employed by the company to represent one of the brands, in this case Microsoft. While they do not work for Microsoft directly, they do represent the company’s partnership with Microsoft.
Since most places use a VAR this is not unwarranted. It just should have been, in my case and in this one, communicated better that they are representing Microsoft, not employed by them.
I do not believe anything nefarious was going on, but it could seem that way.
I always let them get a sentence or two in, as I want them to be perfectly clear that I am the one they need to talk to (often they ask if I’m head of IT… I’m not, but I am head of ‘Dealing with Cold Calls’ (not as much fun, let me tell you)), that way they don’t try calling back and bothering other people in our department.
I then let them get their first sentence about who they ‘are’ out and what they want, and if they ramble at all I interrupt asking for clarification on “who they work for”. Even the ones that might say they are a Microsoft partner right at the start often come back with saying they work for Microsoft the second time. I then ask for a clarification on who pays them… like, do your paycheck come from Microsoft? No? From ‘Harte Hanks Inc’? That doesn’t sound like Microsoft, but look… that’s your caller ID too. Interesting.
If they haven’t already hung up at that point I tell them we are not interested in those types of calls. All they are doing is trying to build up information about your company so they can know what to try to sell you. It’s ridiculous.
