February is not my favourite month and i hadn't intended to blog again until I was in a better frame of mind.
This morning however, the latest attempt to part me from my bank balance made me so mad I thought I had better get it down on 'paper'as it were, before I imploded.
8.59 am phone rings and is answered warily (rather early, not bad news I hoped),
Mrs Barn-ez?
Oh no, I really can't bear it here they are again I really thought they were gone for good.
"Barnes" I barked.
"Yes hallo maam and how are you today?"
"Fine, whatdo you want?"
"You have recently asked the Telephone preference service for help with nuisance calls, and this is to confirm that from tomorrow morning you will only get calls from friends and relatives and people you want to hear from"
"Good, glad to hear it"
Much more of the same then they asked me to confirm that my address is ...... and then asked me to
confirm that my Visa card is in the name of Mrs Ray Barnes.
My antenna immediately snapped to attention "Yes" I replied.
"And it expires before 2021"
"Yes" I rep;lied
Will you confirm on what date it expires?"
"No" I replied "If you want me to confirm the date you tell me what date you have"
"You must confirm the date" was the reply.
"Not on your life" I said, and put the phone down.
The prefernce service is a free service and no one will ask for any financial information at all but i thought I would just confirm what they had already said (they knew my name address and phone number, so I wasn't giving them anything they didn't already have,
They still know as much as they did before and not a thing more. Much good may it do them!!
Dear Ray, I know how frustrating this can be and how angry I can become when someone tries to scam me. It happened once--back in April 2016. Since then I've been very cautious. But then this past Tuesday the "Mac virus alert scam" blared from my computer. It so freaked me out. I immediately unplugged my computer, waited a few minutes, and then turned it back on and all was well. But these things lead to our being afraid of life. And that's one reason I resent them so. Peace.
ReplyDeleteI know how you feel Dee, although most of my would-be scams are phone calls rather than online
DeleteMy immediate reaction to any online approach is the same as yours. Unplug everything and leave it until it vanishes.
What a world we live in.
Dear Ray, yes. what a world. it's a little frightening and I find myself because of what happened in 2016 being less trustful of others. Peace.
DeleteDisgusting. I had something similar happen the other day. I said I wasn't given them ANY information over the phone and they could tell me. They put the phone down.
ReplyDeleteAgreed Sue, Give them nothing, though I have to admit i was tempted to go along with their scam and give them answers to all their questions, just not the correct ones. Perhaps if enough people led them up the garden path they would give up.
DeleteOr is that wishful thinking?