So my wife answered the phone this morning and it was a computer-generated robot voice saying that “The federal government has filed a lawsuit against you…”
Ooh, that sounds scary! Would that be the whole federal government, collectively, suing us, or just some part of it? The robot didn’t say. IRS, Dept. of Defense, Homeland Security, NASA, Dept. of Agriculture–you could spend all day listing them, and still not finish. Oh, the suspense! Which agency of the federal government is gunning for us?
Not to worry, though. The robot said all we had to do was call this number which, as a reasonably moral individual, I will not reproduce here. Yup, just call this here number and everything’ll be hunky-dory, we’ll walk you through it… just as soon as you give us a little information…
How stupid do you have to be, to fall for this? Never mind, don’t tell me.
Somebody just explain to me again why it’s so bad to teach our children the Ten Commandments.
Yep, and I bet that they can protect you from identity theft too. Now, just send in all your credit card numbers, etc. 🙂
Confound it! I already sent ’em all to that guy in Nigeria…
Hey, that’s OK. I have the winning tickets to the Latvian state lottery right here. Just send me some earnest money and they are yours! 🙂
I keep getting the ones supposedly coming from “Windows headquarters” about the error messages they’re getting from my computer — and I need to go to my computer and give them my passwords so they can walk me through a fix, etc., etc., etc. These come from human beings, though, rather than robots, so I’m able to interrupt them and tell them that I’ve trapped their originating number and if they call again, I’ll report them to the Attorney General.
Yeah, I get weird phone calls too. Some are recorded human voices, and some are obviously not human. I just hang up.
One scam is to have a recording that asks; “Can you hear me?” If you say yes they can claim that you have authorized a transaction. Perhaps they should never have done away with the stocks as a form of punishment. 🙂
Yes, a day in the pillory would do wonders for these characters.
Eccl 8:1 Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil.
A bit of public ridicule might be just the ticket.