Mr. Watson. Come In Here
It was last Thursday evening. The grandfather clock struck
4:30 PM. I had settled into a comfortable chair with a glass of wine and the
latest magazines that had arrived in the mail that day. Then it began.
The
first call came in around 4:45 PM. The next one rang in about 20 minutes later.
That evening there were 5 spam calls in total, the last one shortly after 8 PM.
And unfortunately, this has become a regular event on an almost everyday basis.
And it’s very annoying.
I now
believe that one of the major businesses that continues to make millions
and millions of dollars and has stayed well ahead of most other businesses in
making money during the pandemic have been the spam
callers.
I
recently heard of two cases in our community where senior citizens had been
scammed out of several thousand dollars, each in what they assumed were
legitimate calls from the IRS.
I have
gotten smart enough to know that unless I recognize the telephone number on my
phone, I just don’t answer it, hoping it will go to voice mail. But in most
cases the call ends before it kicks in the answering machine.
I have
also tried blocking calls so that it will only ring once, but some of those on
the other end of the line are pretty smart and know ways to get around that
too.
A
confession here. A few years ago, back in the earlier days of my retirement, I
had a job that required phone calling or contacting folks by knocking on doors.
Back then people were generally friendly and cooperative and often the calls
were quite humorous and funny.
But
that was well before the time where we are now with the constant spam calls and
scamming that takes place each and every day.
Sometimes
when I am feeling a bit ornery I will either answer the phone to see what kind
of robot is on the other end of the line or I will dial the number as it appeared
on the phone only to be greeted by the message that “this is not a working
number.” How do they do that? Or, if there is a breathing human being on the
other end of the line, what language will I be greeted with. It sure isn’t
English in many cases.
The
one I really get a kick out of is when the number that appears on my phone is my
own number. Oh my! Am I really calling myself? If I want to talk to myself, I
can do that without the help of a telephone, not that I ever really talk to
myself. Well, maybe once in a awhile.
I also
recognize the fact that there is no discrimination when it comes to scamming
and calls come in either on my house phone or my cell phone.
So, is
there anyone to blame for this?
Science
and technology are very exciting. While new items and inventions are exciting at
the time of their creation, it is a challenge to predict what impact these new
inventions will have on the future society. The unknown! And then come the fear
of the unknown.
So having said that, I wonder what Alexander
Graham Bell back in 1876 would say today about his invention that would lead to
today’s telephones and the uncontrolled spam calling. One simple sentence started it all. "Mr. Watson. Come in here." I am not blaming him. He
didn’t know what would develop. But I wonder if he knew what was going to
happen, might he have invented something else? Maybe a space station or an
electric car.
No comments:
Post a Comment