Lad says he has a text phone and to send my #.. What now?

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Master Baiter Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 163

Used the textphone/deafness excuse to get around talking to my lad over the phone.
LOL I am now baffled that I got such a response. First timer for me.
Is he bluffing???
How do I respond?
That my textphone is suddenly broken??

Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2015 9:46 pm

How is a text phone different from a regular cell phone? With my deaf characters, I always chide them for even asking a deaf person if they have a phone. It's a good reason to rant. There are free online sites that will convert text to audio files. Maybe write a very long reply and email that.

Elite Baiter Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1738

My common response is "I am deaf and do not own a phone".

Lads normally tell me to get one so they can txt, so I ask them why is that any different from email. Which is free, and I didn't get filthy stinking rich by wasting money.

Phones and plans are also complicated, ask the lad a bunch of questions. One a day for a month or so, should see him past his insistence on phone time.

Master Baiter Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 163

I told him I had one of these
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_device_for_the_deaf

So he basically just means text phone as in SMS, texting, whatsapp etc.?

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 3876

just looked a bit into that wiki article.

there are all sorts of opportunities to mess up handing over western union or moneygram data. for example: what would happen, if the software turns a 10 digit code into a phone number? Twisted Evil

or if they are incompatible to each other because of different character-sets?

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 4:34 am

My Skype phone number has a VM message that was generated by a text-to-voice site saying the TDD phone message will be transcribed and emailed to the owner. It seems to work OK for the lads. They give up.

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Sep 2015 Posts: 333

I always tell them i' m mute, i like this excuse more than the deaf excuse.
Or even better not being too specific, last time i told my lad i just can not talk because i had my pineal gland removed in a surgery as a kid. Works fine.

Posted: Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:45 am

Indeed, scammer just thinks you have a phone that can receive text messages, I've hardly ever seen a lad who's familiar with (old-school) textphones. Also many lads seem to think "deaf" = "hard of hearing" rather than profoundly deaf, and expect deaf people to be able to hear shouting over the phone.

Textphones are still around - I know of deaf people who still use them in the UK, they tend to be older and combine their use of textphones (still in some cases with relay operators) with computers or tablets for email.

Anyway, I'd follow others' advice and give him a scolding, text message != textphone.

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 3876

is it good to educate lads about textphones, and how they really work?

how about just inventing something, that might look plausible and is yet completely bogus?

although it's unlikely that he will ever encounter someone who is deaf, but who knows...

how about this: let the lad set up a fax Twisted Evil

it costs money, it requires a landline (most mobile phone providers have turned off the gsm-fax capability).

Twisted Evil

Master Baiter Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 163

Thanks for the input @all

Maybe I'll go with the fax thing.. But I'll think about the next step a little more... It's not like it's really THAT urgent (although the scammer may disagree) Cool

Baiting Guru Joined: 10 Oct 2010 Posts: 3876

one more thing...

I once had a lad (anderson, who went on safari) and he had some weird sms-mobile. it wasn't capable of telephone connections, just sms and email (they even have roaming, and always show some chinese IP, which is rather annoying).

maybe your lad thinks about that as a textphone?

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2015 10:03 am

My usual excuse for no phone is my employer pays for it-no personal calls. I do have a burner phone that can text but that's a last ditch effort. The lad can write emails just as well.

Master Baiter Joined: 18 Aug 2005 Posts: 163

Capone wrote:

The lad can write emails just as well.

That's my view exactly Cool

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