The one that got away: the gas heating cold-caller

"Hello? Yes, this is André... Gas heating? Oh yes, could be, my daughter may have signed me up. What's it about exactly?"

That's what I should have said. It's not what I said.

At lunchtime today, something bit. An unknown 07 number, a slightly rushed voice: "We got a request about gas heating through Google Ads, did you fill in a request?" The classic energy-renovation bait, 2026 edition: they no longer call to sell you something, they call because you supposedly asked. The consent is in the script, if not in real life.

And then I did everything you shouldn't do.

I said I didn't have gas heating. True, but stupid: I had just cut the line at the very first qualifying question. I talked about canvassing without prior consent, which is the right term, the one from article L223-1 of the French consumer code, and that was another mistake: when you know the right term, you don't say it on the phone, you save it for the SignalConso form. A retiree with a gas boiler doesn't quote the consumer code, he asks where to sign. I asked for the company's name, which is exactly what these people are instructed never to give. I announced I was recording, which turned the guy on the other end into a nervous witness. I ended up reading him, out loud, the reports about his number on reverse-lookup sites, and he hung up on an "I'm going to call my carrier" that means absolutely nothing.

Three minutes of wrestling, zero information. A rented number that will be burned by Friday, and the feeling of having won. That's what losing your fish is: you see it jump, you pull too hard, and you go home with a story.

I knew what I should have done, though. The guy on the line isn't the catch, he's the bait. He's in a call centre, often in Casablanca or Tunis, paid per validated appointment: around a hundred euros for each appointment that actually happens if the loft is over 60 m², a bit more above that. Those rates are written in black and white on call-centre recruitment forums, with the scripts attached. He doesn't know the name of the company paying him, and if he does, it's the one thing he's been told never to give away.

The right move is to take the bait. Yes, I'm on gas. Yes, I own the house, built in the 70s, retired, modest income. They promise a callback from an "advisor"; I ask for his number in case I miss the call. The advisor calls back, I want something in writing for my daughter. The email arrives, and with it a domain name, a signature, sometimes a SIREN company number. An appointment is offered, I ask who's coming and whose name will be on the quote, then I cancel the day before. By then I have two or three company names, false claims about the MaPrimeRénov' subsidy written down word for word, and enough to fill in SignalConso, J'alerte l'ARCEP and a France Rénov' report with something more than a disposable mobile number.

The most infuriating part is that the law is entirely on my side: since 11 August 2026, cold-calling a private individual without their prior consent is simply banned in France, and using a 07 mobile number for sales calls already was. I had no need to argue. I could have hung up in ten seconds, or fished for three weeks. I chose the in-between, which is useless.

The problem is that you can't improvise being a retiree with a gas boiler at 12:30 on a Monday with your mouth full. You need the character at hand before the phone rings, otherwise you answer with your real face, and your real face isn't on gas.

So I have an André. André Mouchardeau, to be precise, who has been hanging around my disposable mailboxes for a while, welcoming phishing emails. But a single André isn't enough: the more he's used, the more recognisable he becomes, and above all he isn't calibrated for this kind of fishing. The renovation cold-caller wants a precise profile: owner of a detached house built before 1990, gas or oil heating, taxable income in the "very modest" bracket of the ANAH (the French housing agency), over sixty, a bit lost with paperwork, and an adult child who serves as a pretext to slow everything down.

Hence the André generator. You give it a type of scam, it gives you back a consistent André: first and last name from the right era, year of birth, plausible French town, a house with its construction date and heating, income bracket, family situation, the shield daughter or son with their first name, and a little role sheet: what this André knows, what he doesn't know, what he never understands the first time. It all fits on a phone screen, and that's the point: you pick up, you glance at it, you are André. No real data in there, obviously; André doesn't have a tax notice, he has a daughter who takes care of everything.

It's the opposite of what I did at lunchtime. At lunchtime, I yanked the line. With André, you let it run.

Next bite, André picks up. Generate yours.