MtnRwdux, that would've happened to you at my house. I never ever answer the door to strangers. I don't care what you look like. If it's daylight, I may go to the door, which is glass, with my 100 lb barking black lab, to see who it is and if I don't know them, I tell them I don't open the door to strangers so if they have something they want to tell me, they can leave literature at the door. Nothing irritates me more than someone coming uninvited to my door at dinner hour. Coincidentally, just this evening I saw someone get scammed right in front of our grocery store! As I was leaving, I saw a man b/w 40-50 yrs old with wallet in hand talking with a young girl who appeared to be in her 20s. She was dressed "nicely" in loose cotton shirt with long summery cotton skirt, blond hair in a loose bun. I didn't think much of it as I passed by them and then noticed a guy in an unrecognizable uniform heading toward us, about 50 ft away. I thought he was just going shopping, but then I hear him suddenly yell, "you need to leave the property immediately. You are not allowed here. Get out of here now!" She kind of took off and the man was standing there bewildered. It hit me that she must pave given him a sob story needing money. I've never seen security there before but wonder if this has been a problem lately so they hired someone. Odd. Two,summers ago, I was approached by a man and his son outside a hotel in NJ. I had just checked in and went out to the car to get a few things. We were there for a soccer tournament so,the area was unfamiliar. He gave me some song and dance about needing a few dollars for gas, but I've heard about these kind of scammers before so I politely refused. I then went back inside and reported to hotel staff. My elderly parents got the IRS scam call. They are both totally "with it" and my mother had a nice argument with a guy with a strong Indian accent. She basically told him to go ahead and send the cops..she wasn't worried about getting arrested. I do worry as they age that they might not be so smart.

Oh gosh, I hope keyboards don't disappear! I love my iPad but if I'm going to be typing much, I head to my computer instead as I prefer typing on a keyboard. I've had two wireless keyboards for my iPad but neither last long so I wasn't going to sink money into another one. Typing short responses on my iPad is fine, but I prefer using my iMac for anything more than a few sentences. One thing I've never been able to figure out on my iPad touch screen is how to force a hard return. Like if I'm posting on FB and want to make a new paragraph, I can't do it on my iPad with the touchscreen. Anyone know if there is a trick I'm missing or some sort of keyboard shortcut to make a hard return in FB? I can't remember if it happens on Gardenweb (I'm on my iMac at the moment so can't test), but I know for sure it happens in FB on my iPad.

Sadly, this just happened to my 83 year old parents on Friday morning and they called to tell me about yesterday after the scammer tried a second attempt. I am so stunned that they fell for this scam and are now out $4000. They were told to get $4000 in Visa gift cards immediately as their grandson "Tommy" was set to appear before a judge at 11:00am, so they went to Best Buy and purchased several cards. The "officer" that called even said that they may be questioned why they are buying so many cards, but to tell Best Buy it is for a friend you are helping out. The officer told them he would be calling them at 10:30am to get the card info. He called right on time and my mom read the numbers and pins on all the cards. She asked if she could talk to her grandson and they put "Tommy" on the phone who kept begging my parents not to call his wife or parents. Apparently he had been in jail for 2 days. My mom said it sounded just like "Tommy" and he even called her "Nana". Second attempt happened yesterday morning when the officer called them again saying that "Tommy's" bail was increased and he needed another $4000. This time my dad wised up and asked to speak to "Tommy". It took about 10 minutes for "Tommy" to come to the phone and my dad asked what is your sister's name (he doesn't have a sister). Tommy kept laughing saying "oh come on you know what her name is, why are you playing these games with me." This went on for a few minutes and "Tommy" hung up. My dad then called the real "Tommy" who was home with his wife and quite stunned by what my dad proceeded to tell him. It makes me sick as I write this, I can't believe my parents fell for it because they know about all these scams, we talk about them quite often and this incident is so not my parents. FYI, "Tommy" is my son and has never been in trouble with the law. My parents feel so embarrassed and upset about what happened, so there was no lecturing from me. I feel bad for them.

I think it just depends. One never knows. I had a nice albeit totally inappropriately located deck at the back of my last house. It was a nice deck, just not nice in that location. I wanted to tear it out and put in a patio, which I ultimately did, but I couldn't see wasting all the treated lumber and value of the old deck. Also, I was not much into "deck demolition" and I would have probably had to pay someone to do it or at least help. I didn't even have a screwdriver with enough torque . . . So anyway, I put an add in the local paper advertising it for $50.00. FB was just coming on the scene so it and Craigslist were not big players at that point. This was also before the big lumber shortage, but still. I was just hoping to find one person who might want it. I ended up getting 50 yes FIFTY calls about it. I had to go "first come first served" so I also kept track of names and numbers in order. They guy who got it came with his nephew and disassembled it all for me, and carted it away in his truck. Took him a couple hours so I ended up saying "we're good" on the 50 bucks. I know I lost a bunch of money on that deal, but it was worth it to me for the deck to be gone and being able to get going with the replacement. I am a big fan of the principle of Craigslist, FB Marketplace and also Freecycle. But yes, it is possible for it to be a avenue for some contact with weird and unpleasant people too, so you just have to develop a system. A little OT, but I belong to a local moderated fb group with features local event and sales advertisement, plus requests for recommendations. It's kind of weird, because some folks on there will just post to see their own posts I guess, they will post information that is total baloney, to put in nicely. Like tell you someone or someplace sells something when they do not and never did, not even close. You can get sent on some wild goose chases that way . . . so that's tough, separating the wheat from the chaff . . .