Tag: nuisance phone calls

Robo-Harassment

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If your ex-boyfriend phones you every day, long after you’ve told him, many times, that you don’t want to hear from him again, you can take his butt to court–right? I mean, that’s harassment, isn’t it? Like, it’s stalking!

So how come it’s okay for the same fly-by-night businesses to phone you every single day no matter how often you curse them, razz them, hang up on them, or scream? “This is your final notice…” for the ten thousandth time. “This is an apology call…” “This is an important message…” Yeah, right. That’s why it’s being delivered by a robot?

They call you every day. You’d think, after the thousandth time or so, that it’d dawn on them that you don’t want what they’re selling. But it doesn’t, because it’s not possible for anything to dawn on a robot.

The persons responsible for these calls should be prosecuted for harassment. They should be treated like stalkers, because that’s what they are. And I’m dashed if I can see how they get away with it.

‘A Nuisance Call’ (2014)

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With the Great Quarantine choking off our nation’s economy  and driving us crazy in ways too numerous to mention, the robo-callers have stepped up their attacks on our privacy. We must have gotten half a dozen of them yesterday.

A Nuisance Call

Y’know, you’re trying to eat supper and every couple minutes the phone rings again, and it’s always some shyster-bot trying to sell you something. But you still have to get up and answer it, just on the increasingly unlikely chance that it’s important.

Some bold president or governor could be elected King o’ the World if he outlawed unsolicited solicitations.

‘How Stupid Are We?'(2013)

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“Please continue to hold…”

How Stupid Are We?

That’s a freakin’ robot “asking” you to stand there holding your phone while they prepare to hit you with a commercial.

Who’s stupider? Someone who actually waits on hold because a robot told him to, or someone who thinks this is a fantastic way to sell his product?

And the nuisance calls keep coming…

‘A Nuisance Call’ (2014)

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Boy, do we get nuisance calls! No end to them. I can hardly believe that it’s been going on for at least five years.

A Nuisance Call

Need I advise anyone to just hang up, if you get one of these? They want your credit card numbers, they want your bank account numbers–they want to strip you bare.

I remember the time some crook stole Patty’s credit card, right out of her purse in her office; and before the police could get there, the bad guy had run up $1,000 worth of of fancy sneakers.

Charging Blindly into the Story

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My weekend allergy attack has abated (that’s three weekends in a row), the sun is shining, I’ve got my eye on a good Sabbath rest–and tomorrow I’ve got to plunge back into my new book, Bell Mountain No. 13, The Wind from Heaven.

I just spent a week typing the four or five newest chapters and sending them in to my editor. I give her the book in pieces so she can stop me if anything goes haywire. So far, nothing has. The last bunch of chapters moved her to say, “This story is moving so fast, you’re gonna need a seat-belt to read it.”

I have absolutely no idea where it’s going. Events are piling up like storm clouds, the wind from Heaven’s blowing hard, and I’m just writing it down. I reckon I’m a little over halfway done. I’ve got to finish before the cold weather sets in. I defy anyone to write a decent fantasy novel indoors with the phone ringing every five minutes with a nuisance call. (Congress really ought to do something about that: it’s getting out of hand.) I mean, they’re still calling me to hit up Aunt Joan for money, and she’s been dead for a year and a half. But I digress.

How will this story climax? Where will the clouds finally burst?

When I find out, I’ll write it down.

[Note: If you’re new here, and want to find out more about my books, just go to the home page and click “Books.” It’s all there.]

Back to the Book

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may 31 2019 001

Where’s the Reset button for this day? We’re getting inundated with nuisance phone calls, some of them robo-calls in Chinese, and another one offering a reverse mortgage on our apartment: what in the world makes them think they can sell us anything by plaguing us?

So I typed up the third chapter set for my book and sent it off to Susan, to be informed that because of some computer claptrap, she can’t open it and read it… ah, fap. Just plain fap.

But I did get out there this morning and resume writing The Wind From Heaven, which is galloping headlong toward I don’t know where: the Lord has the steering wheel and I’m just writing everything down as He gives it to me. Chutt and Ysbott, you’re in trouble–let’s see you get out of these jams. Prester Jod, you need a telephone: too bad they haven’t been invented yet. The wind is blowing and all the characters are just hanging on.

And there’s another nuisance call–that’s at least half a dozen of them so far today.

And back to work I go.

My Day So Far

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My allergies are killing me again today, but if I go to bed none of my work will get done. And I had to go to the supermarket this morning.

As I sit here trying to write, with the allergies running hog-wild, the fatzing phone keeps ringing and it’s always twaddle, always someone trying to extract money from us. The last call featured a live person instead of a robot, with a thick Indian accent, trying to sell me “orthopedic pain management.”

Scanning the nooze hasn’t helped me, either. I think I may be getting allergic to Democrats.

*Sigh*  … Time to write Joe Collidge.

First Whopper: A Really Dirty Phone Scam

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I told you, O readers, that I had three whoppers lined up for you today. Here’s the first one.

Nuisance phone calls–we get at least half a dozen of them a day. Yesterday my wife fielded what she called “the dirtiest phone call I ever heard.”

It was some guy from something called the Volunteer Fire Fighters Assn., requesting donations “for legislators who will make us safe by supporting volunteer fire fighters.” Can you think of any legislators who would publicly oppose or criticize volunteer fire fighters?

So Patty asked, “What legislators?” And all the guy could say was, “That’s a good question. Maybe you’d better visit our national website.”

But the answer isn’t there, either. We do find out that this is “a non-profit political action committee,” but action on behalf of which politicians, we are not told.

I called them back later and asked the guy to name a few of the legislators who’d be getting the money I donate. I must have asked this same question half a dozen times, to no avail. I kept asking until the guy hung up on me.

Now, what legitimate reason could they possibly have for refusing to tell the donor which legislators would be getting his money? Does this sleazy, heavy-handed scam have “Democrat” oozing from every pore, or what?

Bad enough they’ve got thieves out there who call up old people and try to convince them that they once stayed at Shyster Lakes Resorts and had a really good time, they ought to sign up for another week, “Just $1,000 down, and we’ll get everything ready for you.”

But these parasites, hiding behind the universal fondness and respect felt for volunteer fire fighters (and deserved by them), propose not to steal from defenseless individuals, but from the whole country. They refuse to tell you who they’re working for–and that means they’re working for the bad guys: characters we would never, ever donate to on purpose.

No one who’s honest would refuse to answer a simple question.

‘Now for Something Really Despicable’ (2016)

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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.

Now for Something Really Despicable!

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.

Now for Something Really Despicable!

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I have just received a phone call–interrupting my search for a morning hymn–with a recorded message that went something like this:

“This is the call-back you requested after you saw the television commercial for our E-Z Acme Back Brace…”

Hmm… We don’t have television in our home, and thus we never see commercials, and we couldn’t have seen a commercial for anyone’s back brace. And truly, not if you put a gun to my head, or a knife to my back, would I ever, ever call the toll-free number to inquire about something I saw in a commercial. And I would see myself shot out of a cannon before I ever requested a call-back.

So, you see, the whole thing was just a big fat lie.

If this isn’t as low as it gets, I don’t know what is. Clearly this marketing technique, this scam, this bit of skulduggery, is aimed at elderly persons who may not be tracking too well and who may even be brought to believe they actually did request a call-back.

This is not to be confused with the robo-call we get every single day informing us that we have just won another free cruise on the S.S. Puke-Yer-Guts-Out.

Once upon a time in New Jersey we had a “Do Not Call” law that protected us from such annoying phone calls. It seems to have fallen into disuse. Maybe some poor idealist in the capitol thought it wouldn’t be needed anymore, that common decency would restrain the scam artists.

Well, it doesn’t restrain the big predators, so why should it restrain the jackals?