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Another Day to Cope With….

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One of the joys of old age seems to be that almost every day of your life is filled with hassles, most of them entailing trips to doctor’s offices or efforts to keep your personal infrastructure running. Today’s menu includes both of those.

Something has happened to my ancient land-line phone. When I’m talking to someone, they complain that I’m “breaking up” and they can’t hear the conversation. I have no problem hearing them, so apparently the issue is with the out-going function, whatever that is. Cox, after a long and annoying runaround, agreed to send someone out to try to fix it. Which of course he’ll be able to do only if the problem is with Cox’s lines, not if the problem is the gadget itself.

He’s supposed to appear between 8 and 10:30. Let’s hope (against hope….) that he actually shows up in that time frame. Because I’m supposed to appear, too: at the dermatologist’s office, an hour-long drive across the city. I’ll have to leave here by about 11:30 to get there on time.

So there’s exactly no wriggle room there.

A signal joy of old age, at least for people who have lived all their lives in sunny climates, is that your skin sprouts carcinomas like an Ohio farm field sprouts corn. Since the last time I saw Dr. Derm, I’ve developed at least three and probably more spots that will have to be cut or frozen off. Whee! I can hardly wait.

If the Cox guy says the problem with my phone is the devices, then I’ll have to stop by a Best Buy and pick up another set of phones that don’t make me crazy trying to work them. Assuming such phones are still being made….

The ones I have came from Costco. There’s a Costco on the way back from lovely Avondale, but it’s in a part of town where I’m not at all comfortable getting out of my car. Plus the first (and last) time I went into that store, their staff was astonishingly rude to me…. So I’m not about to go back there.

If I have to buy another phone, then, I’ll have to go to the Costco wayyyyyy up on the freeway, halfway to freaking Flagstaff, or the one all the way over at 44th street. I’ll be spending the dermatologist’s time at 107th Avenue. Streets in Phoenix are on the east side of Central Avenue; Avenues are on the west side…that’s 151 blocks of hectic city traffic to contend with: a good 20 miles from my house. The Costco I usually go to is 23 miles from the derm’s office and 9 miles back from that Costco to my house: 32 miles through crazy-making, dangerous traffic. In the rain.

The likelihood that I’ll be able to find a new land-line phone is slim to none, o’course. Most folks have thrown those out and replaced them with cell phones.

Now…that’s nice….except….

a) I am all learning-curved out. Try as I may, I can NOT figure out how to use the expensive iPhone my son gave me a couple years ago. He gave me the phone just as the plague was coming down on us. Result: the classes on how to use it that took place in a local senior center were shut down. They’ve never resumed. The class that the Apple store offers, wayyyyyy to hell and gone on the northwest side of town, was a ridiculous joke.

b) It’s another thing to lose. If I don’t set it down in the SAME PLACE every time I pick it up, I’m going to lose it. That’s not a “maybe.” That’s an “absolutely positively.” Then I will spend heaven only knows how long banging around the house and the car frantically searching for it…give up…and finally several days later — after I’ve bought a new phone — find it. This is not a device that works for old folks, for people whose lives have any distractions whatsoever,  or for those who aren’t memorizing every goddamn step they take as they move through life.

c) It’s something else for phone solicitors to pester me with. I’ve managed to block most phone soliciting on the land lines (at the expense of blocking all incoming calls from the west side and from many area codes).

I get up to ten nuisance phone solicitations every day. Blocking area codes and certain prefixes cuts this to two or three pestering calls per day. My phones are set up to minimize that harassment.

Change my number over to the iPhone and…yeah. Here we go again!

It appears you can replicate the area-code blocking on an iPhone, sure. But you have to pay for the privilege! Natcherly.

Lordie! It’s after 7 a.m. Gotta start running…

****

P.S. Just to frost all those cakes, I go to let the dog out and find…it’s raining!

Ohhhhh Hell & damnation. It’s hard enough to schlep to the far, far west side under the best of circumstances. But to do it while dodging around repairmen AND coping with the homicidal drivers on slick, wet roads…dayum!

I may have to call the dermatologist and reschedule, if they’ll allow it.

******

Cox guy in. Cox guy fixes phone. Finds defective cable. Fixes. Cox guy out.

Meanwhile, adding a litle chaos: pool dude in, pool dude paid, pool dude out. Dog gets into pool area but, for a miraculous change, does NOT fall into the (icy-cold!) drink.

Doctor’s appointment canceled: saved from THAT unholy hassle.

Lost iPhone found. Plugged back in.

It’s ten minutes to ten.

Now…if the dust will just settle….maybe I can have breakfast???

Fone Frolicks and Fluff…

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Took some time, but for the nonce — and suddenly — it looks like Cox has got the phone situation under control

Some vast snafu arose last week, so involved I couldn’t explain it here because I couldn’t understand it myself. Cox sent over a tech — one of the nicest men I’ve met in decades. He worked on the phone system for a couple of hours, and now, hallelujah! It seems to be doing what a landline phone is SUPPOSED to do.

Yeah…i know…but i keep the landline for some specific practical reasons.

One is that I know how to use it. Every cell phone seems to be different, and every one of them presents a new learning curve, highly decorated with annoyance and frustration. So, all told…

  • We have the cool iPhone my son gave me, which I have yet to figure out. So far I have managed to learn how to make a phone call and how to call up a map. but…geez…should I have to get a graduate degree in electronic engineering to make a phone call?
  • We have four or five extremely cheapo flip phones that can be carried in a pocket out by the pool, around the house, and when walking the dog. (No: an iPhone does NOT fit in the pockets of a pair of women’s jeans!)  These are not hooked up to any service. Because of the law that says all cell phones have to be able to dial 911 whether they’re connected or not, their purpose is exactly that: for dialing 911 in the next emergency.
  • We have the landline with five extensions, three of them situated within grabbing distance of the floor, for use if I fall and bust myself.

The problem with the landline of late has been an unending blitz of junk phone-soliciting calls. Of late — over the past few months — I’ve been getting 10 or 12 nuisance calls a day! EVERY day. This has about rendered the landline useless, risk of falls or no risk of falls.

The Cox guy cleaned up a bunch of glitches and set the modem so it works the way it’s supposed to. Good.

A-N-N-D… it appears that Cox has connected my land line number with its industrial-strength call blocker!

The CPR Call Blocker, a handy-dandy little gadget that you plug in-line with your phone & your land-line connection, works to some extent. But it seems to be maxed — of late it hasn’t been working worth a damn. I’ve been getting ten or twelve nuisance calls a day! All day, from early morning to 9 or 10 at night. I don’t know whether it’s maxed, or whether the bastards have now got a way to circumvent the thing. Whatever, it doesn’t work anymore.

But today, after I talked with the Cox folks again about this problem, not one nuisance phone call has come in since dawn!

Suspicious, I’ve called the landline number a couple of times from the iPhone. The clunker phone does seem to be working. So the only thing I can figure — and hope! — is that Cox’s call-blocking system DOES work.

Meanwhile, my son has gone off to Colorado to attend some obsequies for his late grandmother — more on that later, when I feel like writing more. Just now, I’m going to bed, before the dogs change their minds!

Making Telephone Solicitation FUN….

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Mwa ha ha! The idea I came up with for harassing the goddamn nuisance telephone solicitors is WORKING. And it is a bit of a hoot.

Thought I’d described this antic in a post here on Funny, but don’t see the thing in the blog’s dashboard. Must have held forth about it on Facebook. Oh well…

Here’s the gambit:

When a phone solicitor calls, instead of hitting “call block” (which, since they spoof telephone numbers, doesn’t block THEIR phone but instead blocks some innocent soul in your area code or even your own exchange), pick up the phone and speak sorta politely into it.

Let the crook begin to deliver his pitch. As he yammers on, take a deep breath and SCREAM AT THE VERY TOP OF YOUR VOICE, as LOUD as you can, into the phone. SHRIEK YOUR GUTS OUT. Give him the shrillest, loudest, earsplittingest

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH

you can blast out.

Scream nonstop until you run completely out of breath. Then hang up. Do not speak a word. Just hang up.

Most of the criminals are probably using headphones to do their job. That means you leave not one but both of their ears ringing. With any luck, maybe you’ll burst the bastard’s eardrum.

Interestingly, this seems to have worked. It’s 10:15 a.m. just now, and I just repelled only the first nuisance call of the day. Usually they start about 8:00 a.m. — sometimes even earlier. And the number of nuisance calls has dropped spectacularly, from around 10 calls a day to one or two. Some days even none!

No kidding: I was getting up to a dozen pestering calls a day. Never fewer than eight or ten.

Within a couple of days after I started the Scream Gambit, the phone soliciting harassment dropped like the bastards all fell off a cliff — down to one or two calls, and some days even none. For those that persist: it’s strangely gratifying to know you left the SOB’s ears ringing.

So far I haven’t done it, because I haven’t wanted to pony up the cash, but part of the plan is to buy one or more recorders so I can play back the SHRIIIEEEEEEEEEK into the phone without having to strain the vocal cords. But seriously: after s few days of this, the number of calls has dropped to the point where that may not be necessary.

Silence is golden…

Weather Report: Scattered Scam Flurries

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Honest to Gawd, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many scamming emails fly in over the digital transom as have come in over the past two or three weeks. Every time you turn around, here’s another wacksh!t scam. Check out the latest:

Begin forwarded message:

From: “Customer Service” <elijahbillingdepartment@gmail.com>
Subject: Attn: We have noticed unusual activity in your PayPay account….
Date: April 22, 2022 at 12:08:50 PM MST
To: vickyhay@mac.com
Reply-To: “Customer Service” <anthonybillingdepartmentus@gmail.com>

Dear User
Attn: We have noticed unusual activity in your PayPay account

Thanks for your patience while we review the unauthorised activity case on a payment you have sent. We’re happy to confirm that this transaction is eligible for PayPal Buyer Protection, and we’ll cover the full disputed amount for you if there are any.

The payment for this transaction is now pending in your PayPal balance awaiting confirmation from the sender. If It’s you, There’s no further action required from you at this time. We’ll let you know if we need any additional information.

Transaction details:

Merchant’s name: Home Depot LLC.
Merchant’s transaction ID:973476LAIPXJ
Your transaction ID:5896321478LWISUSD
Invoice ID:49598-WPLS-268P-4178-9689
Transaction date:22 April 2022
Transaction amount:$1296.97 USD

If you did not authorize the charge, you have 72 hours from the date of transaction to open a dispute. For more information, We recommend you to get in touch with us.
PayPal Customer Service toll-free for the USA & CANADA +1 (805) 421 4441 or info@paypal.com
Please don’t reply to this email. This mailbox is not monitored and you will not receive a response. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account and click help in the top right corner of any PayPal page.

Great stuff, ain’t it?

It’s particularly interesting — IMHO — that they seem to assume the targets of their scams are spectacularly stupid. Guess there must be enough morons out there to make it worth their time.

Hey…we elected Donald Trump to the august office of President of the United States. We can’t be all that bright, as the citizens of a nation, can we? 😀

Still…you’d have to be even stupider than that to not remember the details of a $1300 charge on a credit-card-in-the-sky.

Forwarded this direly urgent notice to Paypal. Not that they can or will do anything about it.

But we can!

Pay effin’ attention, folks! Do not believe anything that comes in over the email. Even if you think it’s credible — today I also got one claiming I owed for some purchase I imaginatively made on Amazon, whose delivery services I use all the time — check, check, and double-check before you send money or information to any email that comes in over the transom. Look it up: did you really make that charge? Did you seriously not pay it? Really? Did you receive whatever they claim they’re sending to you? Do they really have your mother-in-law kidnapped in Guatemala?

Report these efforts whenever you can. Here’s the address for fake PayPal demands: https://www.paypal.com/uk/smarthelp/article/how-do-i-report-potential-fraud-to-paypal-faq2422

Google the business involved and “phishing,” “scam,” “email fraud,” and/or whatever other relevant term comes to mind. This should elicit a department where you can report attempts at fraud using the company’s identity.

A number of agencies investigate online fraud operations, plus just about anything that spills over state lines can be reported to the FBI. Here are a few places to report these fine schemes:

Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
USA Gov: Report Scams and Frauds
Gmail: Avoid and Report Phishing E-mails
U.S. Internal Revenue Service
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation: Spoofing and Phishing
FBI: On the Internet

There are many others. Google where to report phishing emails to access the bonanza and possibly to find sites especially relevant for whatever scam has come your way.

Know that there are widely available mailing and telephone lists organized by age. I first was made aware of this when I magically became eligible to join AARP. Suddenly I found myself not only the target of endless pitches from that august institution, but for hustle after hustle after hustle from scammers who clearly hoped I had arrived at the threshold of old age absent some of my marbles.

In about three weeks, I will reach the 3/4 of a century mark. Clearly, this also is another milestone for hustlers, peddlers, and effin’ crooks: they all think if you’re pushing 75, you must be shuffling off to Senility Acres.

Keep your wits about you as you approach your allegedly Golden Years. The gold these clowns see is in your pocket and your bank account.

 

Scam-a-Rama!

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Welp, the scammers are frolicking about in force. Must be the spring weather that calls them out from under the fridge…

The past three or four weeks, my email inbox has been hit with scam after scam — four of them in just the past ten days or so.

The Scam of the Day tells me my McAfee antivirus subscription has expired and I must hurry right up and send money now.

😀

McAfee? McAfee? We don’t got no steenking McAfee!

All of my fancy electronic doodads are Apple products. Apple provides a very fine antivirus program called MalwareBytes. It’s free, and Apple updates it whenever Apple feels like updating…without you having to mess with it.

LOL! Yes, when I used PCs, I did use McAfee. Because my employer, the Great Desert University used McAfee, and I did whatever the IT dudes advised. But no, I do not now and never have had it installed on the Macinoid devices.

But…

But…thought I…maybe it comes with the iPhone, that fine device that I have yet to learn how to use. Hm…..

Like a MacBook, the iPhone displays a list of applications. No sign of McAfee in there. But just in case…

Just in case, this morning I cruised in to the T-Mobile store, the better to pester my handsome young friends in there.

Cute Dude of the Day looked puzzled when I asked him if we could tell whether McAfee is now or ever has been installed on the i-Gadget. Uhmmm….McAfee doesn’t GET installed on iPhones, quoth he. We check the applications anyway: nope. No McAfeeoid programs.

So…yeah. This is THIRD scamming email I’ve received in as many weeks. So far none of them has tried to persuade me that my son has been kidnapped by ransom-demanding Ukrainians. But I’m sure that one will be along soon.

The first one pretended to come from Amazon — cleverly, for (as you know) it is virtually impossible to get ahold of a live human being at Amazon. It was trying to extract money for the privilege of posting my books for sale on Amazon, and they apparently did have real data from my Amazon seller’s account.

Amazon, as you know, short-changes customers (and sellers) on customer service every which way from Sunday. I finally gave up trying to get a CSR who spoke English and appeared to be a living being, and just took all my products off Amazon.

Don’t forget, BTW, that you can read some of them for free right here at FaM, just by clicking on the linked images in the right-hand sidebar.

At any rate, I dunno why the bastards have suddenly decided to blitz me with scams. Probably it has to do with my age: as we all learn from the ad blitz that comes from AARP the instant we turn 65, marketing hustlers can buy mailing lists that are compiled by age. And they know that old bats are peculiarly vulnerable to email and telephone scams.

Whatever. Be aware, and do know that these people can and do acquire a great deal of private information about you: much more than you might imagine possible. Because they know key details, they sound convincingly like a vendor that you do business with. Any time someone asks you for money or personal information — even someone claiming to represent a business you know — proceed with caution. Or better yet: don’t proceed at all.

Just Hang Up!

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Seems like every day we hear about some new telephone or Internet scam — and, in the “one born every day” department, some poor soul falls for a convincing patter. Check out this story: A crook claiming to be from Apple cons a woman into forking over almost two grand from her bank account, claiming that someone had been trying to hack her phone.

She falls for his tale, follows his instructions — even after she questions his authenticity — and loses $1,980.98. Then, incredibly, her bank refuses to refund the stolen money on the grounds that she willingly paid it to him!

So, one wonders: might her homeowner’s insurance cover the lost funds, since this is a theft not altogether unlike a burglary or a stick-up?

The answer is probably not, unless you’ve already arranged for it. Most standard homeowner’s policies  offer no coverage for cybercrime, and many insurers do not cover it at all. However it is possible to buy such coverage: if you feel you or someone in your home may be vulnerable to a fast-talking hustler, talk to your insurance agent or broker about buying coverage when it’s time to renew your policy.

Meanwhile, the best way to protect yourself from phone hustlers is simply not to answer calls from numbers you don’t recognize. You can install automated assistance in this endeavor: for cell phones, check out this spectacularly delightful call blocking app. If you still use a landline — as some of us do to accommodate a home-based business — an in-line call-blocking device is many times more effective than the phone company’s half-baked efforts.

I use the CPR Call Blocker, which blocks most of the dozen or more nuisance calls that hit my phone number, every day. The hustlers spoof nearby area codes, hoping to trick you into thinking a number is coming from a neighbor, an acquaintance, or a local business. I’ve set the device to intercept numbers from the local area codes where I never do business and where none of my friends live. If for some reason I have to do business with someone in one of those areas, I tell them my phone doesn’t work and they need to email me — this works just fine. A number of such devices are on the market, and some landline phone sets come with built-in call blockers. Check the reviews on Amazon by way of making a choice.

Failing an electronic firewall, though, there’s a much simpler and infinitely better strategy: HANG UP.

The victim of the scam in question today believed the crook when he introduced himself as an Apple representative. Despite her initial skepticism, he fast-talked her into buying his story.

The obvious response to this? Hang up.

In this case, our victim’s next steps would have been pretty intuitive:

  1. Hang up on the caller. If you think it may be a genuine call, say something like Oh dear! The dog is peeing on the carpet! or Eeek! The baby just fell in the pool! Can I call you back? Then get the phone number the caller says will reach him or her.
  2. Call the bank. Tell a customer service rep what the caller claimed and ask a) is it likely to be true; and b) one way or the other, what can done to prevent hacking? Follow the customer service rep’s advice.
  3. Email a description of the call to abuse@apple.com, a service available to her as an Apple computer user. This won’t help you personally, but it will alert the company to the specific scam.

Even those of us who are pretty wary and wise to phone hustles can fall for a convincing pitch, especially if the caller knows something about you. The best defense is to avoid hustlers altogether — or at least, as well as one can — through the use of an effective call blocker. Second best is never to answer a call from a number you don’t recognize. And never, ever divulge financial or private information over the phone. Period.