People have been pulling pranks on telemarketers for years, but one man in Kentucky has decided to take it a step further by using Disney’s Donald Duck to mess with some of the unfortunate souls who called him during dinner time. Or to more accurately state it, disturbed his dinner time. When he noticed that someone was calling him from what seemed like an unblocked number during dinner, Donald Sizemore chose not to answer it. The caller, likely a salesperson or telemarketer, left a voicemail asking if Mr. Sizemore wanted to lower the interest rates on any credit cards he might have. Donald decided that rather than ignoring the call, he would instead turn it into some great entertainment for him and his family by using Donald Duck’s voice on his voicemail greeting.
“This is Donald Duck,” Donald Sizemore said in Donald Duck’s voice when answering the phone call from an unknown number. “If I wanted to know your credit card balance, I’d squeeze your head.” After leaving messages like this on telemarketers’ voicemails, Donald has quit using Donald Duck’s voice entirely because he believes that there are just too many people who enjoy pulling pranks to make it worthwhile anymore. As a result of Donald’s Donald Duck voice voicemail pranks, Donald Sizemore now tries to play it cool with the telemarketers and not give them a reason to call him back. Donald Sizemore says that he is thankful for all his fans and enjoys making people happy by being able to make a call from his house more interesting than helpful. While his wife, Gayle Sizemore records telemarketers’ voicemails, Donald plays the part of the telemarketer on the other line. Donald Sizemore’s telemarketer voice used to be that of Donald Duck until telemarketers started to enjoy his prank calls so much that he no longer uses it. Donald usually leaves telemarketers a message by saying “Tell Mr….Mr…Smith, I’m sorry; can you spell your name once more?” or “Oh, what? What? Who? Tell me, I didn’t get any of that.” when telemarketing agencies call his house while Gayle continues to record and enjoy the show.
Donald Sizemore, telemarketer prankster: “It’s so much fun to play the telemarketers,” Donald said. “If I called my friends pretending to be a telemarketer, they’d think it was really weird.” Although he is retired and telemarketing agencies call his house, Donald has not received any annoying telemarketing calls since January 2016. He thinks telemarketers caught on to him because of word of mouth or by identifying his number from previous telemarketing calls. After finding out about the first telemarketer that fell for this trick, Donald decided he would do it every time one of these companies called, and all telemarketers found through word of mouth about him and his Donald the duck impression. “I have telemarketers calling me all the time and I don’t want them trying to sell me something. You can’t even understand a word they’re saying.” Although telemarketing agencies call Donald multiple times a day, he ultimately finds that telemarketers lack proper telemarketing skills, no telemarketing experience, or something else he is not interested in. “They usually just say ‘Hello’ or try to ask you if you are available,” said Donald. After finding out about his new hobby, telemarketers on the unlucky 10th calls try their best to initiate a conversation without talking to Donald but still end up succeeding at only making things worse for themselves.
