Conning Innocence!

Courtesy : Original artists.com

All of us have been conned at one point or the other. It’s like if you are not conned you are not alive! Well, something like that 😛 . Each of us sure has at least one such heartening incident and some of us just cannot make up our minds on “which was the best”… or should we say worst ;).

These are the black and white incidents. We were either conned or we weren’t. At least we know which is which. Just how many of us have experienced a situation where we were left in the dark: were we or weren’t we conned?

It was an inconsequential 5PM on a Saturday evening, or at least we thought so. My parents and I were in no busy form. We’d had hardly any visitors that day until the bell was rung by a girl aged 22 or so with rustic “this is my first time in the city please help me” looks. When enquired she revealed that she was from BSNL, the telephone company run by the government and was here on their behest. My father ushered in the now “confidant looking” gal (naturally no one asked her for an id!) while mum and I were still waiting for the “unfolding of the mystery”. She sat on the sofa telling us what BSNL had been offering.

The background: when we’d opted for a BSNL landline connection, we had paid 1000INR as the security deposit and were given a phone instrument. On disconnection, we would be refunded 500INR from the same after surrendering the instrument. This is no secret as it being a government connection everyone’s bound to have it or at least know of it.

Now this gal told us that the new scheme was to buy an instrument with caller id for 500INR and surrender the “simple non caller-id” instrument given to us by the company. In fact on Monday, company personnel would visit us and take with them the old instrument and issue a receipt stating that we would now be entitled for a refund of 1000INR as against the earlier 500INR. She brought out a series of document and to authenticate further pointed out to the front door neighbour where her “colleague” was doing the same. When I peeped out I could see him shaking hands with the Uncle and start coming towards our house.

When this 22 yr. old boy came in, the atmosphere took a technical turn. He started to explain the functions of this phone and had pretty much gained the “trust”. Then we decided, it wasn’t a bad bargain after all and we parted with 500INR while they refused to keep the old instrument. They reiterated that the personnel would do the needful. We exchanged pleasantries, I going out-of-the-way and adding, “If you are looking for a job change” touch.

Courtesy : Original artists.com

Monday turned into another Monday and still brought no sign of the “personnel”. How could the government be so laid back in taking back its stuff! The ever prompt father of mine didn’t want to leave it to the personnel and took it personally to surrender.

There he discovered that no such scheme was in the offing and for sure we weren’t the only people to have “bought” such a thing! It was only that day that they had sent out a message in the newspapers of such a “scheme” being fake! The only comforting thing was that we were not the only people to have bought it!

From that day on, none of the three have even accidentally raked the issue even when my baffled sis kept enquiring of the origin of the “sophisticated” phone.  The phone gave services for just over two months before opting for VRS.

As we look at it to this day lying in the “may work someday electronics” section of our household, one recurring question in our minds is: Were we a victim of conning or new-age marketing tactic?!