I really do wonder whatever happened to “Do Not Call,” which actually protected us for several years. Then it sort of went away, and the phone scams heated up again.
Here is one of the less endearing ones.
They really do target the elderly. As my Aunt Gertie grew into her nineties, every goniff in the Western Hemisphere came out of the woodwork, looking for a chunk of her money. It kept Aunt Joan on her toes, protecting them from these varmints: for poor Gertie had become easy prey, and the villains knew it.
It’s one of those things you simply don’t do if you have sense enough to fear God.
Our civilization, our society, has lost much of its character. At the root of this phenomenon is simply a total disregard for others. We need Christ’s rulership.
I think “do not call’ has morphed into ‘do not call back.” I always let the answering machine answer all my calls, which I monitor. Every time I get a crafty solicitous call, i call them back. Most times the numbers don’t even exist; other times there’s a recorded message asking me to provide personal info and someone ‘will call’ me back. One time I received “if you want to be removed from our call list, please dial 1.” I did. And still got a few more calls from them before it stopped. Yes, it’s despicable that nothing works as it should, or as promised. Those of us who value our privacy have lost ground, and our privacy compromised by those who don’t – “I have nothing to hide, so…”
One of the funnier scam calls I get occasionally is someone claiming to be calling me back about the help I requested with my student loan. Um, right. Aside from the fact that I never took out a student loan to begin with, I’m 77 years old. That must have been some hefty loan, to be still unpaid after so many decades. Definitely not a scam aimed at old people. The only thing I can think is that they’re using a call list based on zip codes, and my new neighborhood is demographically young. In fact, I often refer to myself as the building grandma, because most of my neighbors are in their 20s and 30s.