Beware of Scam Artists Posing as Telemarketers

Life in the new millennium certainly takes some adjustment, especially for a country boy like me. I grew up, after all, in an era that is now as remote as the horse and buggy era was to me in my halcyon days. Consider, for instance, how cable TV has changed in the interval. When our family relocated to Feds Creek in 1963, cable consisted of who knows how much naked ladder wire which was strung from the top of one of the higher peaks in Rowe Camp down into the valley and by those houses that are no longer there. First, I suppose I should explain what I mean by “naked ladder wire”. This is simply two strands of bare wire that are separated by ceramic spacers at certain intervals. To hook up to this sort of cable system, you simply take another strand of naked ladder wire, attached it to the main “cable”, and then to the back of your black and white Philco.

We got, as I remember, three channels: WSAZ, channel 3, from Huntington, WHIS, channel 6, out of beautiful downtown Bluefield, and WCYB, channel 5, from the tri-city area of the Volunteer State. Coincidentally, these stations were all NBC. In fact, I might have been in Junior High before I realized there were any other networks. It was John Ward who eventually came riding to the rescue of the informationally-starved citizens of Feds Creek. His system, which went in, as I recall, somewhere around 1967 or so, brought with it an astounding 12 channels, including, for the first time, educational TV. Okay, we overlooked that, but dang, getting to watch ABC and CBS made this upgrade grander even than the one that Intermountain Cable just completed, you know, the one that almost doubled the number of channels you get to above 60, and which allows high-speed cable internet connections. Yeah, the one that is making dial-up computing a thing of the past. All pretty radical, but nothing like John’s upgrade.

Personal computers (PC ‘s) have been the most radical innovation to get into the American home, ever, I suppose, but it brings with it challenges, such as keeping ad-ware, trojans, viruses, and worms out of your system. All of these go by the inclusive name of malware, so called because of the damage they can do to a PC. I am nothing if not a conspiracy theorist, and I wonder sometimes if the sudden plague of these critters isn’t the work of an industry that stands to benefit from selling the programs designed to keep your PC working. Still, you need these programs, and, in fact, it is recommended by “experts” (those who get rich by writing anti-virus programs, I suppose) that you take a multi-step approach to keeping your PC clean. I have McAfee’s anti-virus program, and Micro Soft also contributes its share, probably out of the goodness of Bill Gate’s heart. That, and a program called Advanced Window’s Care, to which I subscribe, plus one called CCleaner ( stands for crap cleaner), allow me to remove all traces of ever having been on the Internet, and keep strangers from peeking into my doings on line.

But there have been other “advances” in the new millennium which allow complete strangers to aggravate the tar out of you, none of which require you to have a PC. One is phone equipment that allows a corporation to become a “telemarketer”, and call you just as you are setting down to dinner in order to find out if you are happy with your long-distance provider, or something equally as goofy. Of course, no one wants to be imposed on by strangers who would, no doubt be as unhappy with these type of calls themselves, and unhappy citizens made such a racket that legislators on both the state and national levels eventually complied with the so-called “Do not call” list. You can, by going to www.donotcall.gov, list your phone number, and, if the system works, immunize yourself from those who want you to listen to their spiel.

Well, like those varlets who found ways to make the “pop-up” ads that so irritated early web surfers, and which made the afore-referenced anti-malware programs necessary, there are those telemarketers who flaunt the do-not-call laws, and whose aims are just as malicious. In fact, some of these telemarketers’ aims are more along the line of the creators of the trojan horses, that malware that hides in your computer to steal sensitive information, such as pass words, or even better, credit card numbers, and you can only imagine why these unscrupulous individuals would want this information. The imagination is staggered.

There is one telemarketer in particular whose calls continually come in, regardless of those on the receiving end’s efforts to end them. The calls go something like: “Hello, this is Michelle with cardholder services, calling in reference to your current credit card accounts. It is urgent that you contact us today, since your eligibility expires shortly. Please consider this your final notice. Please press 1 on your phone now to speak to a live operator and lower your interest rate, or press 2 to discontinue further notices.” You can press 2, and hope in vain that the calls will end, or you can press 1, and tell the “live operator” to take your number off their computer. Neither works. If you ask the operator who they are working for, or press in any way for more information, they will hang up on you.

It is my belief that the whole thing is a scam designed to get your credit card number for fraudulent purposes. I did manage to get a web site from an operator, but when I googled “interestsavingstoday”, all I got was a web site (www.elsewhere.org/journal/archives/2007/02/07/cardholder-services), wherein many other disgruntled would-be customers tell of their attempts to get these calls to end. In fact, some of those called detail how the operator attempts to lead them into giving details of their personal history, such as their credit card number, etc. The bottom line is this, if you get such a call, hang up. And above all, never give out any of your credit information to anyone making a telemarketing call, for any reason whatsoever. And if you have an elderly friend or relative, make sure they are know this as well. Otherwise, you many find that they have been scammed out of money they cannot afford to lose.