An Easy Way to Beat the Scammers

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What with cold weather every day, and lots and lots of rain–it was raining sideways yesterday–I can’t write outdoors, the ink won’t flow from the pen. So here I am indoors, bombarded with nuisance phone calls.

We have learned by daily observation that the scammer calls are always preceded by a “boop” or a “beep.” And then you’ll hear either a robot or some guy with a thick foreign accent calling from a boiler room with other scammers yapping in the background. Lately you might hear nothing at all: it’s a robot compiling phone numbers of actual residents.

All they want is your money. As much of it as they can con out of you.

Globalist world government goofs want to control the freakin’ climate, but they can’t control phone scammers. Well, we don’t need them.

All you have to do is hang up as soon as you hear the boop. Don’t wait for anything else: it won’t be worth it. I mean, come on–“This is the Medicare shipping department”. If you’re going to be fooled by that, you probably shouldn’t answer the telephone at all. Scammers got hundreds of dollars out of one of my aunts before her sister realized what was happening and put a stop to it.

I once had a job in phone sales (oh, that college degree!) for Time-Life Books, which at least was a real product, not a scam. Call people all day long, one after another, trying to sell them a book. We weren’t supposed to fall into conversations with the prospective customers, but sometimes you just couldn’t help it. Maybe two or three times out of a hundred you’d sell a book.

But at least it wasn’t “The” Medicare calling from some boiler room in Calcutta.

We were a home-grown annoyance!

A Law That Doesn’t Work

BT customers can now shove nuisance calls into junk voicemail box | Ars  Technica

How many unwanted nuisance phone calls do you get per day? We get at least half a dozen and often many more.

Did you know there’s a law against most of those calls? The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 forbids, among other things, most robo-calls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_Consumer_Protection_Act_of_1991). That would be about 90% of the calls we get every single day.

Amazingly, consumers have sued over being harassed by unwanted phone calls–and won! But of course you have to know who’s making the calls before you know who to sue. A number of hefty lawsuits have gone against political fund-raisers who just won’t stop pestering you.

How many times have you said, “There oughta be a law”? Well, there is a law! You could look it up. It’s just that in most cases the law seems to have no effect at all. Those boiler rooms in India aren’t the least bit afraid of it.

Gotta love world leaders! The “climate” of the freakin’ planet, they’re going to control it! Nuisance phone calls, they can’t even slow them down.

Maybe if they shot a few of worst offenders, the rest would get the message.

Phone Scammers, Take That!

Wahoo! We have got one of these horrific squeaky toys! And have already found a very good use for it.

I’m trying to write a book review and the fatzing phone keeps ringing, three calls in about five minutes–not good for a writer’s concentration.

But… eureka! After the third scammer, brick-thick accent and all, introduced himself as “from the Managerial Dept.,” I replied, “Oh, good! I have a message for you! Listen!”

I picked up Mr. Duck and squeezed. The dulcet tones went straight into the phone. Banzai! The scammer hung up on me.

You get points if the scam artist is forced to hang up on you.

From now on this toy will be kept in easy reach.

It Must Be National Phone Scam Day

Phone scams on the rise, scammer opens up about operation | News |  newsbug.info

Some readers wonder why I find it so necessary to be outdoors when I write my novels.

Well, today the phone scammers have been out in force–every few minutes, the phone rang. Two of these, back-to-back: “Hi! This is Alexa from the Credit Card Dept.!” Like I can’t tell it’s a robot. Also, in a thick Indian accent you could cut with a knife: “Hello, Mr. Dugong! This is Harry–” oh, come now–“with Medicaid Services…” And several calls with nobody on the other end of the line, just robots mindlessly searching for phone numbers in current use.

Oh, and let’s not forget the one that goes, “This is Jidrool Stores with your call-back.” That’s deeply insulting. But it probably works against defenseless people with memory problems.

This has gone on all day.

These scammers, these parasites–why can’t anybody stop them? Why are we expected to put up with this? Life isn’t hard enough? And I know there are innocent people out there who are getting robbed: my aunts made perfect targets. Never harmed a soul in all their lives.

It’s a quality of life issue. You didn’t buy your phone just so people could use it to annoy you. It doesn’t take many of these calls to explode a writer’s concentration.

Give me the squirrels and the jumping spiders every time.