Terroize me bubba

Lately I've been getting calls at work from this one company called Capital Express. They first started calling and asking questions about one of our copier/printer combo machines all while posing to be the distributor of our toner. At one point they got the name of the individual who orders our office supplies, and since then they have called every day multiple times in a day. The co-worker told them to stop bugging her, I told them to stop bugging her and mentioned that someone else was handling those supplies. So they started calling every day for that person, before realizing that I wasn't going to put them on the phone with that person and instead started asking for Co-worker A again. It really came to a head today when, after the first call I refused to put them through to Co-worker A or B, they called back posing to be someone else from another company and then directly lied to Co-worker A stating Co-worker B told them to ask for her.

I've dealt with aggressive sales people and telemarketers before, but most of them take the hint of "Our CFO is not available, would you like to leave a message?" and hang-up before they actually leave a message. Whereas with these people, they either call right back or ask "Why can't I talk to them?!" and practically refuse to leave a message. At the start of the conversation they identify themselves in a familiar way as though they were best friends with the CFO and long-time customers. It's very disconcerting and unpleasant. Co-worker A theorized that they're part of an office supply scheme she saw once ten years back, where they get enough info about your copiers, employees, business and then send you $1,000 worth of merchandise. They'll have the name of the employee they talked to, the copier serial number and insist that the order is legit. This is just plain bad business practices and probably illegal. It seriously baffles me, if they're not part of the office supply scheme, how harassing employees makes them think they'll get our business.

Normally I act like a Gatekeeper, mess with me and you'll get a merry-go round of voicemail and "dropped" calls. With these people, it doesn't work. If I could get their number I'd have them reported to the Better Business Bureau in a heartbeat. Got any good tactics that doesn't revert to me chewing them out and breaking things?