Business Jokes — most commented jokes

New York, NY
Police across the nation are warning people who wear pagers to be on the lookout for the latest scam.

According to police, pagers in several states have been beeped by a number displaying a 212 area code (New York) and the prefix 540. When the victims return the call, they are charged $55 on their phone bill.

The call the respondent makes has been electronically linked into a 900 "pay-per-call" system which allows the charge to be added to the phone bill.

"People will look at the number and say 'Gee, who is calling me from out of state? It must be important,'" said an investigator.

FrameMaker and Interleaf are competing documentation products. When the spelling checker of FrameMaker 2.1 encounters the word Interleaf in a document, it flags it as a misspelling. What does it offer as the correct spelling? "FrameMaker"!

Denny's resturants are also open 24 hours a day. When they decided to close last Christmas (first time ever), they realized that a lot of doors did not have locks, most of those that did have locks, no one knew where to find the keys!

St. Paul, Minnesota:
For people with lots on their agenda, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company creates 25-inch-by-30-inch Post-It Easel Pads.

The city of Whittier, California was founded many years ago, mainly by Quakers. There is a prominent sign composed of large, brass letters on one of the financial institutions in that community identifying it as the Quaker City Bank. The last letter of the first word fell off during an earthquake yesterday, making the sign read "Quake City Bank."

Many folks have written with perfectly plausible explanations about why merchants take my phone number on a credit card charge. What these fail to address, however, is that if I'm perpetrating a fraud in the use of this credit card, I'm not about to give out a correct phone number. They make no effort to validate the phone number before I leave, so what they're doing is collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people.

Now then... Why are they collecting the phone numbers of a bunch of honest people?

I once asked why you are asked for your phone number when using your charge cards. The clerk explained that theives have been caught because they stupidly put down THEIR home phone number, not the phone number of the person who "owned" the card.

Phone Company Gives Something for Nothing

Dear Ann,
I think I can top the person who wrote complaining about the idiocy of the phone company. Talk about garbage in, garbage out!

When AT&T split with Bell, we had three phones in our house. The equipment belonged to Ma Bell and the service belonged to AT&T. After we returned all the phone equipment to Ma Bell, we received a bill for $0.00. A few weeks later, we received a check for $5 and a note thanking us. Several months later, we received another computerized bill for $0.00. We called again, got nowhere, so we sent another check for $0.00. A few weeks later we received another $5 refund with the same thank you.

This went on every three months for two years. Now we are down to once a year and have given up trying to straighten this out. We just cash the $5 and forget about it.

Linda K. R. in California

REVENUE CANADA T1-SIMPLIFIED TAX FORM
New Simplified Tax Form for 2000 Taxes

1. How much money did you make in 2000?
2. Send it to us.

This speaks a lot about the Japanese quality standards and also cultural misunderstandings. They're still laughing about this at IBM.

Apparently the computer giant decided to have some parts manufactured in Japan as a trial project. In the specifications, they set out that they will accept three defective parts per 10,000. When the delivery came in there was an accompanying letter.

"We, Japanese people, had a hard time understanding North American business practices. But the three defective parts per 10,000 have been separately manufactured and have been included in the consignment. Hope this pleases you."

An old Native American wanted a loan for $500. He approached his local banker. The banker pulled out the loan application, asking, "What are you going to do with the money?"

"Take jewelry to city and sell it," said the old man.

"What have you got for collateral?" queried the banker, going strictly by the book.

"Don't know of collateral."

"Well that's something of value that would cover the cost of the loan. Have you got any vehicles?"

"Yes, I have a 1949 Chevy pickup."

The banker shook his head, "How about livestock?"

"Yes, I have a horse."

"How old is it?"

"I don't know; it has no teeth."

Finally the banker decided to make the $500 loan.

Several weeks later the old man was back in the bank. He pulled out a roll of bills, "Here's the money to pay loan," he said, handing the entire amount including interest.

"What are you going to do with the rest of that money?"

"Put it in my pocket."

"Why don't you deposit it in my bank?" he asked.

"I don't know of deposit."

"Well, you put the money in our bank and we take care of it for you. When you want to use it you can withdraw it."

The old Indian leaned across the desk, looking suspiciously at the banker, and asked, "What you got for collateral?"