Questionable Solicitation Tactics from the Milwaukee Repertory Theater

Our office phone just rang, and we picked up to hear a recorded female voice say “someone left this message for you.”

Then the voice of an actor came on, identifying himself as Ebenezer Scrooge and offering a discount on the Milwaukee Repertory Theater production of “A Christmas Carol.”

There was only one problem with this: the female was lying.

We know how our voice mail works. We never just get rung up with a voice mail message. A light on our phone goes on, and we get the message when we want to.

Of course, if we assume that nobody ever answers their phone, the female voice would be making a true statement. But some people do.

One might also claim that, since the actor is lying claiming to be Ebenezer Scrooge, why not have an actress claiming to be some sort of phone attendant? The problem is that everybody knows that “Ebenezer Scrooge” is an actor, but the intention seems to be to mislead people about the phone attendant.

This is not a big deal, but why lie? The product is of quite high quality -- if quite pricy.