Yech! A particularly creepy telemarketing sleaze just called. When I picked up the phone, a live human spoke, not an infuriating robo-marketer recording. He sounded like an older man — just my age, lots of common with me, right?
Right away he started in on a pitch for some sort of “emergency call” system. He was peddling those gadgets you wear around your neck that are supposed to summon help when you fall or have a stroke over your fried eggs or whatever. He didn’t get far enough to tell me exactly what gadgets or how overpriced they were, because before he could draw a breath I was telling him my number is on the National Do-Not-Call list, he should be ashamed of himself for harassing old ladies with nuisance phone calls, and he ought to get himself an honest job. He was protesting that he had an “honest job” as I hung up on him.
Honest job, my ass.
If your parents are getting on in years, or if you yourself are elderly, you should be keeping an eye out for scammers who call old people on the phone.
It was clear this guy knew my age and he probably knew I live alone. His MO was to scare me, and if I had been just a little less cagey, he would’ve had an easy time of it.
Last week I did fall, in the middle of the night, and I did hurt myself. I hit my head going down and smacked my knee so hard it was awhile before I could get to my feet.
And yes. This is exactly the kind of thing that scares the bedoodles out of me. No one pays the slightest bit of attention to whether I come or go. I could lay on the floor with a broken hip until I died of thirst, and no one would notice.
Fortunately, I’m clever enough to have put three of the house’s five land-line phones in places that can be reached from the floor. And yes again: that’s why I have a land line: so I can have an extension in every room. A cell phone allows for one, maybe two phones, at an elevated price, and with just two of them, neither is likely to be sitting someplace where I could reach it if I were on the floor and hurt.
I dragged myself to the nightstand and pulled down the phone. Called my son. It was midnight. He didn’t answer.
About to dial 9-1-1, I realized that emergency workers couldn’t get in through the special hardened locks I’d put on the security doors after the late, great garage invasion, and since I’d had to smash the secret key hidey-hole with a hammer the last time I needed to raid the key stash, there are no keys to the house hidden outside. Soooo…it wasn’t going to do much good to call the rescue squad, unless I really, really wanted to have one of those expensive new low-E windows busted in.
Eventually I managed to get up off the floor. But not knowing what effect a whack on the head was likely to have on an old bat, I limped out front, stashed a couple of keys under the Burglars Welcome mat, e-mailed La Maya and M’hijito to suggest that if they hadn’t heard from me by 7 or 8 a.m., they should call 9-1-1 and tell the dispatcher how to get into the house.
The moral of the story is that today’s smarmy chucklehead on the other end of the phone line called at just the right time, and that’s what he was counting on. I’m always subliminally worried about being here by myself. But the recent fall had crystallized the obvious risk.
Meanwhile, researchers have recently discovered that people’s natural wariness of the smarmy and the untrustworthy weakens with age. This explains the ease with which con artists scam the elderly, often cleaning out Granma’s bank account.
I suppose my profound hatred for telephone solicitors serves like a flu shot against the creeps. But if I’d been another ten years older, who knows? Maybe the immunity would have worn off.
If you’re in that sandwich generation, keep an eye on the old folks. Ask them how they’re handling their money or if they’ve decided to make any changes in their investments. Keep your ears open for any sudden decisions to renovate the house or buy a time-share in an RV park.
And if you’re already an old folk? Hang up instantly on all phone solicitors. Do not speak with them, and do not be polite to them. Remember, they have already been rude to you by intruding on your privacy, so you have no obligation to speak courteously to them — nor should you. Do not open junkmail, and never respond to an unsolicited offer that comes in the mail. And always consult with a trusted adviser before making any major decisions pertaining to money, your estate planning, and healthcare.
Is it only me, or is everyone else getting inundated with scammy phone solicitations — three or four hustles a day now?
