Sly ads for phone sex lines.
"Call me! Call me now!"
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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There's a tonneau cover website that has a banner asking for people to call him before placing an order because he can save you money. You could just order the tonneau cover and pay without talking, but I thought what the hell?
I called and it's just the owner sitting in his warehouse. He explained that his contracts prevent him from quoting anything less in print, but over the phone I just told him which one I wanted and he said "That one? My margins kinda thin so I can only discount it by about 8% or so. That work for you?" Lowest price by a good amount and ended up ordering.
So not always a bad idea. I suppose the website screamed "I'm just a dude sitting in a warehouse waiting for you to call me and wouldn't know how to sell your info even if I wanted to."
Yeah, he's just basically doing logistics/re-sale as a middle man between you and the manufacturer. But the vast majority of websites displaying this, especially, but not solely in software sales, do it to get you on the phone with someone that will attempt to get more money out of you, not offer discounts...
I've never seen that outside of enterprise services and artisanal / boutique / made-to-order goods
Having people sit by a phone is expensive
You usually have to email.
Its common for equipment that tends to be sold to businesses, and cars, motorcycles are even worse, despite having an msrp, theres tons of places that won't sell anything without adding like 10-20% the msrp of the bike in fees. Idk how they stay in business.
Scientific equipment. Try finding out how much a 100,000 FPS camera or an electron microscope costs.
Why do they even do that? At least have a minimum volume price and a high volume price.
Why do they even do that?
To get you talking to a salesman. A salesman who can, at least supposedly, work his salesman magic to get you to buy shit that you otherwise wouldn't have.
That reminds me, I need to call Leaf Filter tomorrow or soon anyways. I have no issue with their product, it's simple and apparently does what it's advertised to do.
No no, my problem is that they're fucking wasting paper and ink/toner flooding all our mailboxes at an apartment complex that doesn't even have any gutters to install their product.
Fucking DUH! 🤦♂️
Edit: Leaf Filter phone number, in case you're getting their stupid spam paper mail too...
1-888-640-0845