Spam, spam, spam I am
I have been teaching high school now for a few years, and I have learned that having a laptop, cell phone, or iPad in the classroom is essential. There are no paper grade books anymore: attendance and grades are kept somewhere up in the clouds or des nuages, for those of you who speak French. (I know that only because it happens to be the title of a beautiful tune written by Django Reinhardt.) On the days that I do not bring an iPad or laptop into the lecture room, I use my cellphone.
Given that there are few things as aggravating as having a phone ring in the middle of class, I acquired the habit of keeping my phone on “silent” and “vibrate”. And I never acquired the habit of turning the ringer on at the end of class. As a result, my phone always has the ringer disabled.
These days I find that to be a blessing. Every weekday (and occasionally on the weekend) I receive an average of 13-15 calls by telemarketers and scam artists. My very intelligent phone identifies these as “potential spam,” which I believe insults the canned meat product with the original title. These callers have area codes from all over the United States, although I am not sure that the area codes are real. Recently I have received potential spam calls from Kingston, Surrey, Jamaica, so the spammers are spreading their wings. They never leave a message, with one exception.
I have received three calls, from three different area codes, voiced by non-native English speakers, who leave messages. The line “I am calling from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” is clear enough, as is the telephone number I am asked to call. The caller begins with the reason for the call: a loan I have allegedly taken out with someone. It is at this point that the message begins to get garbled. The speaker decreases his volume and mumbles the words. Not even my voice-to-text feature can figure out what they are saying. I believe this is intentional, a ploy to get the sucker (me) to call the scammer/spammer back. The Bureau sounds official, but you should know that the Federal government does not do business over the phone. You will always receive a letter from them.
My colleague at work tells me that I am a target for spammers because of my alleged demographic: a baby boomer with money, probably inherited, who is retired, not familiar with technology, and easy to scam.
My way of dealing with this nonsense is by not answering the phone. Legitimate callers leave messages. There is a fellow by the name of Tom Mabe who has figured out another way of dealing with spam telephone calls. Fortunately, he keeps a recorder by his telephone (yes, he still has a landline) and he records some of his misadventures. What follows is my favorite conversation.