Popeye Moment

I’ve just about reached my Popeye moment with phone scammers. (That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!) I get so many scammers calling me, so many robo-calls, that I’m at the point of just turning the ringer off on my VoIP phone, and leaving the mobile phone turned off unless I’m out and about.

I get multiple calls per day. Sometimes a recorded message starts playing. Sometimes a man with a foreign accent says he’s calling me from “tech support”. Sometimes, a recorded message claims that the the call is coming from “internal revenue services”. Services, plural! I’m sure the real Internal Revenue Service knows its own name. They say they’re going to file a lawsuit against me if I don’t call them back and pay them money. (By the way, the real IRS will never initiate contact with a phone call, nor will they ask for money in a phone call.)

Years ago I listed both my VoIP number and my mobile number with the National Do Not Call Registry but scammers don’t care. Phone scammers also don’t use their real phone numbers. They spoof a random phone number or use a number that belongs to a legitimate business.

Now that I think about it, I have another phone number – it’s a Google Voice number – that never receives calls from scammers. Not one scam phone call, not a single robo-call has come into that Google Voice number in all the years I’ve had the number. One more thing, and it’s an odd coincidence: Unlike the other two numbers, I have never submitted my Google Voice number to the National Do Not Call Registry. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.