"If you receive a communication you don't like by whatever means - by phone, by email, by text message, or whatever - simply ignore it and move on ".

That’s exactly what I do. For some reason you prefer to pick up the phone when you don’t know the number. Whatever floats your boat. My “issues” are resolved with a quick glance at the phone a couple times a day. Hardly worth changing my number and notifying decades worth of contacts of the change. Also hardly worth answering.

As for the DOL issue, I assure you it was a very cordial conversation, but the manner of the call made me slightly uncomfortable and the “verification email” wasn’t entirely satisfactory to me but I let it go.

I used to have a sign at work that said Common Sense and Common Courtesy are often neither.

The problem is that not everyone has that judgement and for sure as people age, it becomes more of an issue.

I took the post as being a reminder to be cautious and the 'test" gave us various scenarios.

The example I shared was extreme, but it happened. I have known very astute people who have ALMOST fallen for a scam.

A reminder is a good thing and if it offends anyone, you know that ol'excpression - scroll on by.

I never answer (cellular, canceled the landline 3 yrs ago) calls from unknown numbers. Anything important or legitimate, a VM will be left. It's not surprising how many don't.

I've had a local internet provider for 30 years, and also use their email client. It's not unusual for me to get a spoofed notice from "them" that I have too many emails, or I haven't logged in enough, etc., the usual stuff. The sender's email is the usual giveaway. A few years ago I got one about too many emails and my account would see an increase in cost, contact us. The sender's email actually looked legit. So I called (no clicking on links) and sure enough, I had a lot of old emails I didn't need. The ISP person suggested I delete what I didn't need to keep and I'd be fine. I did, and I was.

If I had followed Elmer's advice and ignored it, I'd have gotten an extra charge and had to deal with that. Being cautious is just being careful and proactive. It's easier to head this off at the pass rather than try to recoup what some jerk has taken.

" If I had followed Elmer's advice and ignored it "

I think maybe my explanation was poor or you misunderstood. I answer all calls, read all emails and messages. How would you know the nature of the communication if you didn't? That isn't being cautious or concerned.

I move on from what I don't like. There isn't much flotsam and jetsam in what I get but what there is, I don't find provides a reason to be annoyed or irritated. Or to do a Chicken Little routine about.

Which local (not national or worldwide) ISP has their own email client?

I never leave messages on the server, always download to my computer and delete them from the server (with Gmail, via the account set up in IMAP protocol). Daily/continuous housekeeping. I ran a very small design/hosting business for some years, had constant trouble with users on their hosted domains leaving mail on the server and complaining about out-of-room warnings. Then they had suddenly a large bunch of message to clean up because they didn't keep up with the housekeeping.

And no, I've never lost any important messages. Data can be backed-up and copied to a new computer. I have messages saved from 20 years ago.

If you receive a communication you don't like by whatever means - by phone, by email, by text message, or whatever - simply ignore it and move on.

I did receive a communication by email that I didn't like because it sounded exactly like bogus stuff. Had I ignored it (and I was sorely tempted), I would have incurred a legitimate extra charge. Some of this stuff is obvious and laughable, but some is very well crafted. I'm glad I cautiously looked into it further.

Haha they study anyrhing!

”Only 19% of Americans generally pick up cellphone calls from unknown numbers; women, White adults, older adults, higher-income adults less likely to do so.”

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/12/14/most-americans-dont-answer-cellphone-calls-from-unknown-numbers/

The one answer I got wrong was something my credit union doesn't do, so I marked it as a scam.

And I didn't see comments that reflect 'chicken little' thinking...?

Being skeptical is not being fearful

These scams proliferate because they work on enough people to make it worthwhile. Knowledge is power.

I'm in the habit of sitting down at my computer as I start my day each morning. I have one puzzle that I do (making sure I'm functioning 😊), check my emails, log into and check my bank balances. One account that I keep at our long time bank is linked as the payment source to my PayPal account and I use it somewhat often, like to verify amounts while still fresh in my mind.

My bank has had fraud alerts on their main webpage for weeks - that page I see before I've logged in. All the above about them never ever asking for an account, phone, pin number along with a number of other things to not respond to in a call not placed yourself or in a received email or text. I'm almost ready for something more interesting - I've seen it so many times now. Your bank doesn't want you involved in anything fraudulent any more than you would want to be.

I did share the link to the test to a few people, and each one got back to me and said they either got them all right or 6 or 7 right, but thought it was a good reminder, so again- thanks for sharing it.

Do you think it a good idea that she has credit cards and perhaps a check book in her possession?

Yes, I do. She functions quite well most of the time. We are always on her about scams and she's usually very careful and calls us if she has any doubts. This one, for whatever reason, didn't raise alarms with her. I'm pretty sure the next one will.

Her bank actually has an annoying level of fraud protections. We have taken over a lot of her finances after my father in law died. They had 2 checking accounts. Could never get a good answer to why. We told her to stop using one and only use the other. I tried to move money from the one we don't want to the one we do want and it locked the account and we had to call to get it fixed. The woman on the phone said there's some scam where people are told to transfer money. OK, but I'm just transferring between my own accounts. Whatever, please unlock it. I tried a somewhat smaller amount and same thing happened and we had to go through it all over again. So now I'm doing small amounts until it's all moved.

I appreciate the attempt at fraud protection, but this is overkill.

It sounds like you're on top of things, jsk, but...... Her unfortunate event demonstrates that the risk exists. It will continue to exist and the same or a different unfortunate event could very well happen in the future, should no changes be made.

A similar event happened on a distant and dim-witted branch of our extended family a few years ago. That person's kids (older adults themselves) had a "one strike and you're out" reaction and took over all her financial matters,. And removed from her possession all cards and checkbooks. They gave her the equivalent of a petty cash fund, kept at maybe $100 or so, to pay for things in day to day life.

Risk eliminated? Emphatically yes.

elmer - if she ever gets to the point where that is needed, we will make changes. She's not there yet. Not even close. At the moment, she is capable of managing things as is. We are not going to give a highly functioning adult an allowance.

Bless you, jsk. Too often adult children become control freaks and try to take away their parents’ autonomy - and dignity - at the first signs of deterioration.

Husband and I both took the test and we each missed one... calling a scam a real message.

I got the USPS text twice yesterday saying I had a package that couldn't be delivered. In all the years we have used our bank, we have never gotten a call from them. I am a Luddite and still have a landline because I have a Verizon package and have phones all over the house. On my iPhone, I rarely get any texts because I don't give out that number. The landline rings a few times a day and I never answer unless it's the pharmacy, doctor, or kids. No messages are ever left unless it's a real situation. I am the most untrustworthy person around and assume everyone is out to scam me unless proven otherwise.

" Too often adult children become control freaks and try to take away their parents’ autonomy - and dignity - at the first signs of deterioration "

My goodness. Your attitude over-accelerates like a Tesla.

I can't imagine anyone who knows someone who's ever had to contribute time and effort to the management (of any kind) of a parent's situation or well being, would ever prematurely step in to do so themselves.

Easily avoidable risks are just that but not with a status quo. It's wishful thinking in my view to expect that something like this incident that has already happened once to this person, isn't very likely to happen again. You think she's capable of functioning on her own as is? Hmm. What explains what happened then?

With elderly people, cognitive abilities don't improve with the passage of time and what to younger people might be viewed as an obvious opportunity to learn from a bad decision or experience, may not play out that way with someone older.

Good luck to all.

Make up your mind Elmer is jsk on top of things or taking a gamble based on wishful thinking? If your relatives were right to invoke the “one strike and you’re out” rule why did you feel the urge to call them dimwitted?

The truth is, these are often highly subjective decisions even for those most in tune with the specific situation. And impossible for you to judge objectively from behind your screen, based on a quick anecdote.

My comment was an effort to be polite and tone it down. I hadn't realized so immediately that a hands-off approach would be continued.

It would seem that I don't have the same habit as food of reading, taking notes, and then cross-referencing comments looking for what could be considered as possible inconsistencies as he seems to have for my comments. Maybe finding some more enjoyable hobbies could help?

" why did you feel the urge to call them dimwitted? " (what a ridiculous question!)

Because they're dim-witted. I've known them for decades and it was perhaps the first sensible thing I can remember anyone on this branch ever doing and it was a group decision. You must know them to challenge my comment, are your experiences and opinion of these people different?

I'm sharing my observations based on experiences I've had. How about you, what have your experiences been?

No I was genuinelu a little confised about your anecdote. You called them dim-witted but then saying risk eliminated.

As for me taking a moment to read and try to understand whar people are saying, maybe if you’d try it you wouldn’t have such a “fan club” here.

What kind of hobbies would you suggest? Answering phone calls from unknown numbers? No thanks.

As for the doofuses, even blind squirrels can find nuts once in a while.

Informal conversation is just that. If you like to research, formulate, draft and then review your comments before posting them, you've got too much time on your hands.

I rarely intend to insult but there's no denying I'm direct. I like to offer comments when it seems like people might benefit from a different perspective or contrasting point of view. I'll leave it to you and others who choose to respond to others like those in the audience at a tent revival service.

How about you, what have your experiences been?

Here’s one: Earlier this year my mom’s computer froze up with a fake ransomware type pop-up. “Call such-and-such immediately or you will lose all your files and personal information.” Fortunately she called me first. It took quite a bit of convincing to get it through to her that it was a scam, no do NOT touch the computer, do NOT call that number, etc. Even when I got there she didn’t understand why I wasn’t calling the number. A little patience and much repeating, I finally got through to her NEVER to respond to something or click on anything when issued a warning, don’t do anything but call me.

It happened twice again after that, and she called me. No need to take her computer away. Or her phone. Or her access to money.

I like to offer comments when it seems like people might benefit from a different perspective or contrasting point of view.

And you expect people to accept those points of view. Unlike how you don’t accept others’.

There’s nothing inherently bad about being direct. Coupled with social skills it can be an asset.

Holy moly. My mother in law was a bit too trusting in that one situation. Yes, I am pretty sure it won't happen again. The woman is still writing and getting published. Her mind is fine. When/if it's not, we'll adjust.

I do keep a close eye on her bank accounts because her husband who handled all financial matters is no longer here to do so. She is very happy I am doing this.

Her mind is 100% there. She has not changed since the day I met her 40+ years ago. And yes I do think her son (my DH) and I are totally capable of assessing when more intervention might be needed.

Here's another anecdote for you on the opposite spectrum. She received a life insurance check from one of my father in law's many policies (thank goodness that man thought ahead!). She texted her son that she got the check. He asked for the amount so he could put in his records (so many things to track). She called. Asked if it was ok to tell him the amount of the check over the phone/text or should she wait until we came for a visit? She was afraid scammers could get the amount. What they would do with that, I have no idea!

So she, like any rational person, is skeptical of scammers. She's just not very technical and that one slipped by her. She now knows nobody will ever text her for a credit card number under any circumstances.

" And you expect people to accept those points of view. "

Nope.

Where’s Judi? She’d normally pop out of the woodwork and scold us right about now. Haven’t seen her in months. I wrote to her, no response. Checked obits, fortunately nothing. Anyone know?

jsk - That’s so funny about not wanting to say the check amount over the phone!

I guess we all have our quirks and paranoias. I recall one poster here not saying which one of two Trader Joe’s in their area they shopped at, out of concern for their privacy. 🤷‍♀️

Where’s Judi?

jsk, here's an anecdote from the doofus branch.

Early 80s woman who was a widow. Spent her life always a few cards short of a full deck. (Story as told afterwards)

Weekday afternoon. Knock at the door, she opens it (no problem, relatively safe residential neighborhood). The guy standing there identifies himself as being from the "electric company" (not what the utility is referred to there. She should have known that).

"You have to come with me quickly to the backyard, to the power pole"

"Wait here, I'll walk out the back door"

"No, you need to come quick, please come this way"

She walks out the front door, they go back there...

"You have a lemon tree here"

"Yes, it's been there for 40 years"

"We're finding that lemon trees can cause a problem.........

(ridiculous conversation goes on for about 10 minutes. Goes nowhere, she says thanks for coming by, goes back to the front door to reenter (back door was locked).

About 10 minutes later, she realizes that the house had been ransacked. Apparently by a partner in crime. Jewelry in a box on her dresser taken, cash taken out of her purse, like that. Total loss a few thousand dollars.

Guy wasn't wearing a uniform, didn't present credentials, didn't even know the name of the municipal power company that EVERYONE knows and uses.

I haven’t seen Judi around here in a while. I hope she’s okay, and just taking a break.

Elmer - that's a terrible story. I'm sorry that happened to her.

I'm not sure what a family member could do to prevent that short of living with them, and even then it's not foolproof.

Thankfully for us, this is not a situation we need to be concerned about for my mother in law as she lives in a door man apartment building in NYC.

Analyzing these situations after the fact it's easy to point out all the red flags. But when you're just going about your day and a situation presents itself, whether emergency or seemingly mundane, there’s no telling how much our guard will be up or how rationally we'll react. You’re at an intersection and hit a pedestrian who steps out in front of you; is your first reaction to jump out and make sure they’re ok, or turn off the car, grab your key, grab your purse, get out, lock the door, THEN check on them?

I’m not sure why or what there is anything to analyze. People can act thoughtlesslly when reacting to unexpected circumstances. Others may struggle with normal circumstances. This person has a pattern of odd decisions and sometimes unexplainable ”events”.

Analyzing these situations after the fact it's easy to point out all the red flags.

Absolutely. Coming upon a new situation for the first time it is difficult to think of everything. But reading about a situation, and then seeing the subsequent analysis *may* help the next time it happens. Analyzing, then practicing thought out responses to certain situations, like the fire drills some of us have participated in, can help also.

I finally got through to her NEVER to respond to something or click on anything when issued a warning, don’t do anything but call me.

A practised response to a specific targeted issue, and it save her dignity and her autonomy.

Earlier this year my mom’s computer froze up with a fake ransomware type pop-up...

This happened repeatedly to my father in law over the years. DH (his son) would tell him to never click OK on those messages. Yet several times he would click OK. And then call DH because his computer was "acting funny". DH would ask why he didn't call him like he told him repeatedly to do and his response was always -- I didn't want to bother you.

Well, that call would have taken 30 seconds. Now I have to remove a virus from your computer which is going to take a lot longer.

He finally got it and either called (no, do not click anything in that box; it's a scam) or learned to not do it. But it took quite some time.

Some people are so trusting about certain things. He would never have fallen for anything where he had to pay money like mother in law did.

Not all people have good sense or the ability to remember cautions.

Same person, different incident. Something I thought previously mentioned here but I don't see it now. The grandchild kidnap/ransom idea. She got contacted and in response to being asked where she lived, was told to leave cash in a shopping bag at a spot in a nearby park. Lacking that much in her account, she called her kid requesting he bring to her several thousand dollars in cash. This was her only grandson's father, she didn't mention the reason. He asked why the cash was needed and she responded, while sobbing, that his kid had been kidnapped.

No, he responded, he's here eating lunch.

Shortly after the house incident above, she was moved to a nice senior living facility. Her kids took over financial management. She's been there a number of years now. Safe and protected from dangers from strangers and from herself.

It's nice to be thoughtful and caring but sometimes soft measures don't work.

I recognize all situations and people are different. I know another bizarre incident involving this person and suspect there are many others I don't know.

We all rag on our annual cybersecurity training for work, but they do include all the scenarios in this quiz, so it is good that they make us do that. We do get spam emails that look like they're from some administrator asking us to buy gift cards.

Last week, I saw some posts that people answered to spam callers "Hello! You're LIVE on the air!" LOL, "Hello. Pentagon", "Hello. FBI Office". I wouldn't even pick up but I thought these were funny.

Years ago, my mom got the infamous 'your grandson is in prison in Mexico...' call. She hung up and called my brother (only grandson's dad) who confirmed her grandson was just fine and not in prison anywhere. She didn't even hang on the phone long enough with the crooks to find out how much money they wanted. Yay mom!

jsk, thank goodness your mom felt confident enough to call your brother without the worry of being called senile, or goofy, or unable to handle her own affairs. It sounds like she had a close relationship with her kids and could rely on them for advice.

"the worry of being called senile, or goofy, or unable to handle her own affairs"

If you're referring to my comments, you can rest assured she was never spoken to with such terms to her face. Her kids later realized they'd seen her decline and had been in denial about it. Not unusual in any way, she was lucky to have family to act on her behalf.

Should you ever face difficult decisions about an elderly person in decline, accepting reality for what the truth is is a better approach than ignoring it or pretending a person's condition is other than what it obviously is.

Don't tremble (or worse, get angry) when your phone rings with an unknown caller ID or let all such calls go to voicemail. Doing that is allowing yourself to be emotionally victimized. don't let that happen. For me, more often than not, such calls are real.

Elmer, all I can say to the last sentence of that is "Lucky you." I mostly stopped answering the phone when 19 calls out of 20 were obvious fraud. Like "Microsoft" or "Social Security" calling because they "detected fraud on your account."

My phone service has gotten better about flagging things as spam, or valid number. I will pick up when it is a valid number, if I'm expecting the call, or it's from someone in my contacts. Otherwise, no. It's not that I'm living in fear; it's that I'm avoiding annoyance.

But my workplace encourages paranoia. We've had more training on phishing and other targeted attacks than you can shake a stick at.

Wasn’t sure whether to put this here or on the home insurance thread so Iflipped a coin.

My FIL just called. Recently he got a call on the landline which he never uses, some number from Virginia, no company name on caller ID. Bad connection, kids in the background, thick accent he could barely understand, a guy’s telling him he’s from insurance and needs to come look at the house. Suspicions up, FIL ends up hanging up on the guy. Later that evening, another such call. Again, between noise, accent, and raised suspicions, no meaningful conversation.

Today he got a cancellation notice for his homeowners because he wouldn’t agree to a home inspection.

Unreal, huh?

Has he called his insurance agent or company directly to confirm, and complain?

Interesting FOAS.

My home owner's insurance company sent me a letter, saying they would be conducting an outside inspection of my home. A few weeks later I received a voice mail from someone with an accent so thick I couldn't quite make out what he was saying, but after several listens I pieced together insurance inspection and he didn't need me to be home, was letting me know in case I saw someone walking around outside my house.

Sounds like they're outsourcing inspections to a 3rd party who is using work from home people (kids in the background in your example).

Hopefully he can speak with his carrier and get it resolved.

What's the relevance of stressing that the caller had an accent? That's hardly unusual or of much significance these days.

Dadoes - He’ll be calling his agent but he’s also taking the opportunity to shop around.

Ally De - Intereating! it wss probably the same kind of thing. It would be hsrd for

me to imagine him missing a letter, thst would be VERY unlike him.

Elmer - Along eith the background noise and apparently bad connection, the strong accent msde communicstion difficult to the point where even sdter two calls he wasn't convinced it wss anything legit.

Just yesterday I called a hotel to ask for a change in a previously made reservation. I was told they needed to check some policy items and asked for a callback number.

My phone rang 30 minutes later- unlisted number shown on caller ID and a person whose heavy accent was a challenge to understand. I'm very good and experienced with many accents, this one was tough.

Should I have hung up?

The accent of your caller was much easier to navigate than that of my FIL’s caller.

How do I know that? I don’t. Any more than you know how my FIL’s call went down, beyond the brief description that I gave.

What we do know is that you were expecting a call-back at the time, and any keyword such as the hotel name would have tipped you off as to what the call was about. As opposied to a clmpletely unexpected call from someone trying to come to your house.

But I’m sure you also would have handled my FIL’s calls better thsn he did. Because you’d handle any circumstance imagonabel better than anyone else would. You’re just that special!

Obviously, some people have a harder time understanding heavily accented English than others - esp. people with hearing problems...

Has your FIL reached out to his ins. co. to appeal, FOAS? Don't they need to send him advance notice in writing?

Thanks for the insincere compliment. I do have common sense and abilities sometimes others don't have.

In this case, I told her I was busy and asked for a number to call back in 10 minutes. I called back, it was the hotel I'd been dealing with, and that confirmed her bona fides.

Life isn't as hard or treacherous as some would make it.