It started when the phone rang.
Applejack looked up from her lunch and swiveled her ear in the direction of the ringing telephone. At first she thought that maybe, just maybe, it would be fine to ignore it. She'd had a long morning, after all, and her stomach was growling at her to eat before she went back to work. Maybe Big Mac or Granny Smith would pick it up.
The phone kept ringing.
Applejack grimaced and stood up. It seemed like nopony else would be able to answer for the moment. She ground her teeth together as she trotted into the side room where the recently installed telephone was shrieking like a newborn foal. She slid the headset on and pressed the answer button.
"Y'ello."
"Hello, this is Legit Collector from Equestrian Revenue Services. I am calling to inform you today that we have not received income tax from you for the years of two thousand and fifteen through two thousand eighteen."
Applejack raised an eyebrow, as she is wont to do, but didn't interrupt the person on the other end.
"In front of me I have a warrant for your arrest. If this matter is not resolved in a timely manner then the Equestrian government will seize all of your assets, including but not limited to, passports, identification, property, bank accounts, and you will serve up to five years in a federal penitentiary."
Applejack raised the other eyebrow.
"How do you wish to proceed?"
"Um... sorry, sir, Ah'm afraid you probably got the wrong number here." Applejack scratched the back of her neck. "Besides, Ah heard that the ERS don't ever call somepony. They do letters."
"We do not have the wrong number, and yes, sometimes the ERS does call ponies. May I start with your name?"
"Uh... Applejack."
"Okay Miss Applejack, listen to me very carefully. If you do not wish to settle this matter now, you can fight it in court. However, I wish to inform you that if you do so and lose, you will be subject to the penalties mentioned above."
"Okay. So how much am Ah owin' here?"
"You owe the ERS one thousand five... six hundred bits and thirty-fiv... seven cents."
"Uh-huh." Applejack rolled her eyes as it finally clicked. "Ah'm sure Ah do."
"Now before we continue I must ask you a few questions. Do you file your taxes yourself or do you have some third party do it for you?"
"Third party," Applejack replied, walking out of the house. "Filthy Rich has a real good tax lawyer and we always do our taxes through him."
"Alright, I must further ask you if this is merely a mistake on your part or if you intentionally are trying to fraud the Equestrian government?"
"Hmm." Applejack spotted Big Mac who was pushing their brand new lawnmower out of the barn. She waved to get his attention, and when she did, she pointed at the phone headset and mouthed 'scammer.' He smirked and nodded in reply. "Well, Ah guess it'd just be an accident. Not with me, though, with the lawyer. We just give him our tax stuff and let him do his thing."
"Very well, Ma'am. So now do you wish to resolve this matter here or take it into a court of law? I once again remind you that if we go to court and you lose, you will have all of your assets seized and you will spend no less than seven years in a penitentiary."
"Oh, Ah guess we could solve this now," Applejack said with a shrug. "Right now, as a matter of fact." She sat down next to the lawn mower. "Before we do, Ah have one thing ta say."
Applejack took off the headset, placed it right next to the lawnmower, and nodded. Big Mac nodded back and pulled the cord. The lawnmower roared to life with a nearly deafening noise that even made Big Mac and Applejack flatten their ears. She held the headset next to the lawnmower for a few seconds, then stood up and put it back on her head.
"How's that?" She only heard a weak gurgle from the other end. "Stop scammin' ponies. It ain't nice and it's gonna get you into real trouble someday."
With that, she pressed the button on the side and hung up.
Nice. Very rarely do I see a decent story go up with all its chapters complete. I'll read the rest later.
I told a political surveyor I didn't believe in personal opinions once. Reading this reminded me of that, and it's just funny, and now my day feels a whole lot less stressful.
Thank you.
I love messing with these people, so now I'm on their blacklist.
Being insane on command is fun.
Man, I wish I thought of that when I got called by a particularly annoying and persistent scam caller.
Ended up nearly grabbing my entire home phone and just smashing it to pieces before they finally quit after the 6th call.
Chainsaw would have been more appropriate.
Whenever I get one of those robocalls that starts with "Please do not hang up", the very first thing I do is hang up.
I once nearly fell for one of those scams where they try to get you to give them access to your computer. Before I could press the final key they wanted me to type, I said that I could just reset my latop to factory settings like I always did to remove the "virus" they informed me of and then they got upset with me.
I mean, they're deliberately kind of crappy. Competent people tend to call the police. They want the people that will call Miss Cleo when their bank account starts draining, or near-dementia'd pensioners.
I've never seen a IRS scammer with this level of language skills.
9199185
I want to hear more, lol
9203899 Well, it was 2016 and election season was in full swing. My fiancee (now wife) was the one getting calls, and ignoring them/politely telling them she wasn't interested wasn't working so well. So one day while I'm over at her place to have lunch she gets a call, and I offer to take it. I get the standard spiel of "Hello, this is [so and so] from [surveyor company]. Do you have a few minutes to talk about some personal opinions?" at which point I said "Sorry I don't believe in personal opinions" and hung up. They never called back after that...
It also helped me get out of buying a selfie stick in Rome a few months prior to this incident.
9204474
I have something vaguely similar that I do around election season when the people with the clipboards stop me to ask me about my political opinions/ask me to sign something. I just say I'm Canadian. Boom. Simple.
I tell them I'm an illegal alien and don't have a social security number other than the one I stole from the guy whose house I took over after I murdered him and buried his body in the backyard.
I use a REALLY bad accent for it too.
Usually dead silence on the other end of the phone.
9210568
I wish I had the guts to do something like that. I just ignore my phone.
9204474
I am going to have to remember that line. "I don't believe in personal opinions." Beautiful. And, yeah, those selfie-stickers in Rome are everywhere. Though I would have expected you to just accuse them of heresy against the Empress.
I like how the scammer asked for her name right after saying that she was looking at the warrant for her arrest. This is exactly a scammer thing.
As an in real life Tax Attorney who deals with the real IRS on a regular basis, I am enjoying this premise.
i.imgflip.com/2ltm7b.jpg
-Soviets salute in praise.-
Ah, when I find one of these people I get so happy. Oh, and talkative! Stream-of-consciousness discussion is amazing, and you'd be surprised what rampant ADD can conjure in a conversation if you let it off it's chain.
I once spent like 15 minutes forgetting what this guy was trying to tell me about, only to suddenly become fascinated with this groundhog that was trundling across my backyard. I then suddenly asked him quite seriously about his opinion of mangos, as if I was contemplating whether to cut the red or blue wire.
Then I asked him to remind me why he'd called again? And when he told me (again) that he was with Mi-cro-soft and needed to access my computer, I suddenly announced that I didn't care anymore and hung up.
Strangely, I've never gotten another call from Mi-cro-soft. I guess that security problem cleared up on it's own.
9201669
Well that's because this is the Equestrian Revenue Service! It's whole new breed...of horse
I wish i could get scammers calling me, I bet it'd be fun as balls, lol.
Nice.
9275866
All Hail Mother Russia!!
Go Russian spec ops, Spetsnaz. Hail R6/Tachanka!
9199394
I go through the problem until they tell me to run through a command in the CMD and say "Oh! I know what the problem is! I have a Mac!" And promptly hang up.
Sigh... problem is most of em are automated these days so you can’t screw with em. Totally takes the fun out of it.
Reminds me of when people yell loudly at robocalls.
9707710
yeah, like I keep getting a call about my car's warranty "expiring" every afternoon at 12:30. Completely automated and no way to mess with them. I'm considering replacing my voicemail greeting with an MP3 of the "number disconnected" message for my carrier that starts with the interrupt tone (I've heard some robodialers listen for this in order to save whatever fraction of their time they spend on each number), but I can't for the life of me figure out a good way to get the clip on my voicemailbox without losing quality.
9204507
my Canadian best friend does that too. It works wonders. Wish I had that superpower but sadly I'm Pennsylvanian