“Hi. This is Beckie….”
Does this sound familiar?
“Beckie” is one of those hated robo calls that comes to our house every day. These calls are selling something, trying to scare us into believing that we are in big trouble with our insurance company, or have problems with government/law enforcement.
Beckie calls us at least once a day, but sometime she rings up four or five times, from daylight until dark.
But Beckie is not the only one who disturbs our peace. We get calls wanting a donation for what seems like a good cause. But calling me on the telephone won’t get you any money. First of all, my giving is usually local or to something I am personally familiar with.
I got a call a few years ago and it was from an actual person, not a machine.
The guy was calling for a donation to a law enforcement group. When he finished his appeal, I asked if he was a law officer himself. He said that he wasn’t but worked with a company who worked for the benefit of law enforcement. I then said, you are not a volunteer so part of the donations pay your salary and fund the business operation you work for. He said yes. I asked what percent of donations actually gets to law enforcement groups. He said he didn’t know.
That ended our conversation.
Some of the strangest calls come from credit card companies. The caller says we are danger of having our credit cut off from some company whose credit card we do not even hold. I question if the call is actually from a credit card company or just someone who wants our personal information so they can unlawfully use the card.
The theft of your personal or business information can be devastating. Never give out information such as your credit card numbers, social security information, your birthdate or anything about where you bank, not even the name of your bank. And, for goodness sake, don’t talk about any medical condition you have or any treatments.
Probably the best defense against these calls is to just hang up. If you use caller identification (also known as called i.d.), don’t even answer if you don’t recognize the name or number.
For a while, people who used only cell phones didn’t have these calls. But the rise in cell phone usage has drawn the robo calls to portable phones as well.
There have been efforts to shut down these call centers by letting you opt out of robo calls. These efforts have not been very successful, but I understand someone is still trying to put an end to these constant interruptions to our daily lives.
Around our house, the philosophy is to help local fundraising efforts, as your money has a greater chance of doing the most good. I suggest that if you have money to donate, give it to your church, civic club, or to student fundraising drives. Also, some good options are local institutions such as the friends group at the Neosho National Fish Hatchery, the Neosho-Newton County Library, or to some of several worthy causes at Crowder College.
Just between you and me, you should buy local and give local as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment