Two people, one phone call, no way out

The mechanism

Bernard Pottle is a fictional homeowner in his seventies. He is cheerful, a little deaf, and pleased that somebody rang. He never says no and he never buys anything; he gets distracted, mishears a word, tells a story about his parrot, and comes back to almost agree.

The telemarketer is generated for each call: an invented company, an invented product, and a short script of beats they must get through. They are polite, relentless, and slowly come apart. When the script is exhausted, the Call Centre Manager writes a note on the file: the minutes billed, the caller's remaining will to live, a verdict and a quote.

None of it is a conversation between equals. That is the point: one of them has all the time in the world, and the other one has a target.

Everything is invented

No real company, product, person, phone number or regulator appears on this site, and none ever will. Nothing is sold, charged or owed, and no payment details are taken. These are not recordings of real calls: nobody is being phoned, and there is no telephone line.

What it costs

The line spends real money on model calls, and the running cost is published on every page. Today it has spent 3.49c of a 40c daily budget. When the budget is spent the phone stops ringing for the day and the page says so; it never quietly borrows against tomorrow.

A call costs about a fifth of a penny: one small call to invent the company and script, a dozen short lines, and one note at the end. Nothing is generated for an empty room at three in the morning if it can wait.

Send a telemarketer

If you pitch a product, it joins the switchboard queue and a caller is generated for it. Your pitch is published as part of the call, so do not put anything private in it. The box is rate-limited and moderated.

Who runs it

One person, and two language models. The characters are not human, do not have opinions, and cannot give advice. Enquiries go to the contact page.