Let's back up to the National Do Not Call list and set a few things straight. Our wonderful legistlators led everyone to believe that they were protecting all of us with this great idea, but they put no teeth into it. A number of people/organizations are exempt - charities, anyone you are already doing business with, and those businesses that cannot conclude the deal over the phone (which can be kind of a gray area). You have to re-register every 5 years. Some states, like Indiana and Wisconsin have their own laws that supersede the National Do Not Call list with stricter rules. If you live in those states and register with the state list, the calling business can be fined even if they already have a relationship with you (which is permissible with the National list). Breaking the rules in Indiana is $25,000 for the first offense and $10,000 for each one thereafter. Now, you have to give them time to remove you from their list. You can't call today and expect the calls to stop tomorrow. I don't recall if the waiting time is 14 days or 30 days. And the interesting thing is, the offending business has to prove they did not call in the event a complaint is filed. A number of large corporations have paid some hefty fines to the state of Indiana. Another thing you can do is to tell the offending caller to put you on their own Do Not Call list. They are required, by law, to do so. Make note of when you tell them and report them if they call you back.

Some companies do offer a "spiff" to realtors. In our state, it's on our contracts that if a home warranty is purchased, the realtor may get a "spiff" from it. It's around $50, depending on the company. But even if a homeowner chooses to offer a home warranty on the sale of their house that didn't pay any bonuses, I still recommend them. I had a seller decide he didn't want to buy one, and a week before his house closed, his HVAC system died. If he'd purchased a home warranty, not only would his buyer be covered, but he would have been covered until the sale of the house went through. As it was, he had to spend $1400 on a new unit. Had another seller who elected to include a home warranty for a prospective buyer. The warranty covered his property while it was on the market. In the middle of summer, one of his a/c compressors failed. $55 (plus the $400) fixed it, rather than him paying in the thousands. It's just one of those things that goes a long way in protecting the property while it's being marketed, and also a "warm fuzzy" for buyers. No, they don't cover everything, but they sure can help!

I have donotcall and the phone rings once and then stops. If it rings more than once I look at caller ID and if I don't recognize the number or name, it goes to voice mail. We were expecting a call from Apple almost two years ago and coincidentally got one of these scammers. Thankfully nothing happened but not because my husband was smart. As he talked with this guy with an accent and started doing stuff on the computer I googled the number. Guess what?.. Nigeria. I've only gotten one call since then and I let him have it.

Yes, us crazy old cat people nearly fell for a scam recently. A beautiful Bengal kitten needed to be rehomed. The seller had a roommate whose co-worker owned the cat and had to relocate to Australia for business. Co-worker gave the cat to the roommate. Roommate's sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer and roommate went to be with her, leaving the cat. Seller didn't want a cat. Of course these details were only revealed later through a series of texts. My daughter saw the ad and thought I would be interested. She did all the texting and phoning and shared the texts with me and put me on 3-way for the calls. We're in California and the cat was supposedly within a hundred miles of us. Then it was in Virginia, but they could ship it to us. By now we knew it was a scam and daughter decided to have some fun. She asked how much to ship. The guy said about $95. Daughter said okay, but it would have to be shipped C.O.D., because she wants to make sure the cat was really in the package. We then get a call from the shipping company (they even had a website) telling us to go to Walgreens and send $195 via Western Union to some guy in Cameroon. Daughter says it's supposed to be C.O.D., but the guy says they can't do that anymore because they've been burned too many times. She says (truthfully) that our Walgreens does not have Western Union. So, he says to go to Rite-Aid. She said she doesn't think Rite-Aid has Western Union either. The guy yells, "Yes they do and so does Walgreens!" Daughter strings him along for a bit longer, says she's not comfortable sending money to Cameroon, so they come up with a name and address in Los Angeles. They call and ask if she's sent the money yet. She says not yet. She wants them to take a picture of the cat in the carrier, with a newspaper in the picture showing the date. She gets the picture, but no newspaper. The text says, "It is nighttime now. This picture was taken in the daytime" Huh? She texts back, Still waiting for what I asked for." Daughter stops answering her phone. After about six calls, he texts asking why she is not taking his cals. He's mad. Says they don't have facilities to keep the cat overnight, so they will have to take it to a shelter for the night. And they will be calling the "animal police" on her and she will be charged with cruelty to animals. We got a good laugh over it.