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Friday, December 18, 1998

The Foolish Woman and the Cold Caller

by ([email protected])

Sit down and I shall tell you the tale of the Foolish woman and the cold caller.

Several months ago a cold caller called my husband at work in the middle of the day. Now, my husband is a brilliant engineer, but he couldn't care less about stocks or investments. He was smart enough to marry a Foolish woman to handle all of that for him! So, my husband said to the cold caller, "I don't do any of that -- you'll have to talk to my wife. She takes care of our finances."

Mr. Cold Caller replied, "You let your wife run your house? Does she know what she's doing?"

Now, some Wise-guys would actually fall for this old and very slimy sales technique. They would do whatever the salesman told them to do -- after all, if you don't you're not the man of the house, right? Fortunately for me, my husband isn't led astray by such obvious manipulations.

My husband said, "Look, why don't you ask her? If you want to talk to her, here's her number!"

So this guy calls me up. He tells me my husband gave him my number. Asks if he can call me if he gets any "good leads" on investments. What I'm thinking, of course, is, "If you're so good at investing, why are you cold-calling me instead of standing watch over your own million-dollar portfolio?"

But I'm nice. I decide not to say what I'm thinking. I say, "Look, I'm subscribed to three Internet services that e-mail me information on the market four times a day (InfoBeat, Motley Fool, Market Watch). I subscribe to Investor's Business Daily. I do my own research over the Internet. I read The Motley Fool. I don't buy penny stocks or OTCs. I only invest in companies I'm familiar with. I'm sorry, but I don't really think you can give me any information that I don't already have!"

He's ready for this. In a smug voice he says, "Wellllll then... how are you doing?"

I say, "I bought DELL four weeks ago, and it's already up over 18%. I think I'm doing pretty good!"

He says, "Thank you for your time," and hangs up.

Funny thing, the broker has never called me back. The moral of the story is this: The Foolish woman -- she was born at night, but it wasn't last night!

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