I used to know a fellow named Dave who carried his cellphone with him but kept it turned off unless he wanted to make a call. He would say, "My phone is for my convenience, not for other people's convenience." Well, okay. It's his phone, so he can use it or not use it as he prefers. I have arrived at a similar position regarding my cellphone.
I used to receive so many calls from scammers and salesmen that I quit looking at the phone to see who was calling. I check the call list at the end of the day. There are seldom calls from people I want to talk with. Most of the calls are from strange numbers, usually out of state. I used to answer these calls but they were always from people who wanted to scam money from me. Usually, the voice was a recording. Sometimes it was someone who wanted to buy my house cheap so they could make a few superficial repairs and then "flip" it—sell it for a quick profit. I used to receive a lot of mail from home flippers, but now they call me. Or, rather, they try to call me. Another common variety of call is the threatening kind, in which a voice would tell me that I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to have my assets seized, etc. These are not the kind of phone calls that, if they were real, would be delivered by recorded messages.
So my cellphone sits on my bedroom dresser and I no longer look at it when it rings. It seems I've reached a point in life where a phone is almost superfluous. I don't know that other people (besides Dave and I) do the same thing, but I do know that some of my friends are nigh impossible to reach by phone, though I can reach them by email and schedule a voice or video call. It's useful to have a phone to make phone calls when it's necessary. It is the junk call that has become the bane of today's phones. At least for some of us.
2 comments:
Good morning!
I am glad that you wrote about this subject. It's very annoying to receive these calls and I remember that it was a time that businesses used to call at nights, sometimes when we were having dinner or we were already in bed.
I learned my lesson when I got a call from a lawyer telling me that a very important program on tv made a raffle and I won a tv and some money and I needed to go the ATM and with the code that they will give me, they will deposit the money into my account. I also had to go to the tv station to pick up the tv.
I went to the bank first and the lawyer was on the phone with me and he started telling me what to do at the ATM machine. I dialed the code he told me about and the money could be there. After that I had to go to pick up the tv the same day.
Something told me that I needed to check my account in order to check the balance. Surprise! surprise! No money was there and my money was gone. They cleaned my account. The good thing is that I did not have too much money, but it hurt me a lot and I got very angry.
I called to the number that showed on my cell and I found out that it was from jail. It was a group of prisoners that got a phone list from many people in the country and they calculated everything very well in order to make these phone calls and fraud us.
Since then, I don't answer unknown calls and I don't open unknown messages either, sometimes I sleep with my eyes open. This is terrible.
Great job, Mr. VW. I love your post.
TA
Greetings
Great and timely post -- I think we all agree calls for both cell and home from strangers has gotten out of hand. But I loved TA's post -- wow --what a lesson learned -- it makes you realize that nothing in life is free -- even if it's a raffle --
I was recently on the end of a scam and was almost taken in -- thank goodness I woke up in time.
Very good post -- more, more, more -- miss the wisdom and guidance you give.
How about recapping the election goings on -- I like the way you condense things so anyone can understand them.
Best, LL
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