Beware of Telephone Scams
By Bob Branco
This essay was taken from my book, Weighing Thins Up, Book Two; Essays on Trends, Technology, and Present-Day Society.
I’m sure that many of you have received phone calls from people who either request information from you or want to assist you with a problem, such as a personal debt or a computer issue. After years of dealing with callers like these, I must tell you that I ignore them if I am not familiar with who they are. In the first place, there are too many scam artists who can’t wait to victimize us. Allow me to give you some helpful hints which indicate that you are about to be scammed.
First, if someone contacts you offering advice on how to reverse your debt, and if he says he has looked through your personal file, please do not pay attention. The only way that a debt reversal organization looks through someone’s personal files is if they get permission to do so. And as far as I know, no one has offered personal files to such organizations.
Another type of phone call for you to avoid is the one from a person claiming to know all about your computer. He will even tell you that you have a serious technical problem with it. First of all, if you never reported any computer problems, how would these people know what they are? So again, this is likely to be another scammer, and you should hang up on him.
There are also people who claim to represent energy companies and want to offer you a deal. Although the deal sounds tempting, ask yourself if you have ever heard of these particular energy companies before. If you haven’t heard of them, it’s possible that the caller is trying to get information to use against you.
What I am basically saying is that we should all be extremely vigilant when strangers call us. As I said, you can hang up on them, but I also think it’s important to contact your local police department and let them know about the type of calls you are getting. The police have been known to track down telephone scammers in the past, and they will do their best to turn them in.
We live in an extremely greedy society, so I just want people to be aware and to do their best not to be victimized any longer.
(Originally published in Word Matters)
