Please let your friends and especially those Seniors that may fall for these phone fraud scams.
Screen your calls. Don’t pick up if you don’t recognize the number. If it’s important they’ll leave a message.
I just got a call from a foreign-sounding woman claiming to be part of the “Legal Department of the US Treasury.” She threatened some very ominous legal actions that were going to be taken against me, and ended the call by hoping I have a “blessed day.”
That itself convinced me that she couldn’t possibly be from the US Government—LOL!
IRS called and told me I would be arrested if I did not call a phone number and straighten things out.
Rebeca form credit card services calls once a month.
Some guys form India working for Microsoft call regulatory.
The “Police protective association” calls regularly.
The Colorado “No call list” is another scam that does nothing.
I use NoMoRobo — it is quite effective at blocking the crap. If you want to help, you submit numbers that did get through so others won’t get hit by them. Helping is optional, but I like doing it.
The quickest way for outing scammers posing as tech reps is to ask them for your IP address. If you don't know it, there is a link on my freeper page where you can see it.
Usually, I just hang up on these jay-birds or even let it go to voice mail, but once in awhile I like to hoist them on their own petard.
Be skeptical about EVERYTHING.
I use NoMoRobo — it is quite effective at blocking the crap. If you want to help, you submit numbers that did get through so others won’t get hit by them. Helping is optional, but I like doing it.
Caller ID can be and is spoofed. Be skeptical of what it reports.
Just tell them, “Can you hang on for a minute?” and lay the phone down for 1/2 hour. ;-)
To fall for scams like these mentioned, a person must not have much of a grip of reality.
We have a game...
Trying to keep the scammers on line as long as possible. I kept Rebecc from credit card services on the phone for 16:04 minutes one time.
Also keep a stickie of the local FBI agent and office near your phone. When their recording asks for a call back number I gladly give ‘em the FBI.
The Microsoft support was driving my wife crazy and I was not answering the phone until I had enough. I now take please in being an actor. Every time they call I am a different person with a different accent. Sometimes dumb as dirt, other times an old man that cannot hear correctly so I keep asking them to repeat what they said, sometimes a Luddite that has no technology in my home, just something different every time. Went from 3-4 times per day to no calls in the last two weeks.
Say this: Thanks for calling, please give me your credit card number, the cost to speak with us is $500. Sometimes the dummies want to argue but I just say: Sir! your credit card please!
Best $100 we ever spent:
Some days we get 5-6 and have had as many as 8 scam calls per day. I look the (blocked) numbers up online & can see what kinds of scams they are.
The Digitone call blocker comes from the factory set to accept all calls & you can block the ones you don’t want. We were getting SO many calls, I was running out of room for blocked calls, plus we were getting calls from different states. The call blocker also has a another mode you can switch to ... this mode blocks ALL calls & you “invite” those you want. I have switched our blocker to this mode and it is working well.
You can invite or block calls many ways using # as a ‘wild number’. So you can do it by area code only: 123-###-####, area code and exchange: 123-456-#### or you can block the last two digits (pesky callers changing extension numbers) or be even more specific 123-456-78## or even 123-456-789#.
I have elderly parents & I think they are on every “elder scam” list out there ..... this has given us a quiet house again & greatly reduced the chance that they will talk to someone they should not be talking to.
There is a simple and free way to abort 99.999999% of these calls.
Sign up with NoMoreRoboCalls:
If a caller is new and sneaks past NoMoreRobo, I have two ways to handle that number:
1. I answer and tell the scammer to call back in 30 minutes. Then hang up and put that # on call forwarding. The next time they call, they will be forwarded to our local DA office reporting scams.
2. A day later, I add that number to NoMoreRobo as a scam call.
The NSA is too busy listening to your grandma talk to your uncle about the grand kids to give a Shiite about actual scams....
Sites like this one...
...are useful for identifying the source of junk phone calls.
During the height of the primary season, I had identified about 10 numbers that were being used by the Cruz campaign.
I’m getting a lot of calls from the 202 area code (DC) which are sure to be GOP fundraising calls.
Most folks with VoIP can get NoMoRobo https://www.nomorobo.com/
Folks with cell or POTS don’t have that option.
If you get one of these scam calls, what a great opportunity to tell them about Jesus.
Bkmrk.