Scams, George Clooney and lottery wins.

Now that I am working part time I am around the house a lot more in the day time which has resulted in me picking up a lot more phone calls than I would have done when working full time. It's amazing the number of times the phone rings each day and it's lucky that I am in to catch the calls or I would never have got the call from Microsoft about the terrible virus that my computer had contracted. I would be unaware of the hundreds and possibly thousands of PPI repayments that were due to me and would have missed out completely on the amazing offer for a conservatory, despite living in a first floor flat.


Just the other day I had a call from a call center and the caller kindly informed me that the product replacement cover on my washing machine was due to expire soon. I was expecting the call to be my fourth PPI message of the day so was surprised into responding that I didn't think that this was likely. The helpful person at the other end of the line asked me why I thought that, so I explained that I had got the washing machine second hand 16 years ago and it had never been covered. The caller ended the call abruptly. It got me wondering if maybe some of these calls are scams.


This also got me thinking about what all of these calls say about society and human nature and I have come up with the following thoughts:

• A huge amount of time and effort is put into trying to scam us out of our money. There must be thousands of people across the world employed to try and trick us into giving our account details out. What if, instead of trying to steal money, those people instead did something useful. Surely they could be doing something better with their time, whether that be making, fixing or teaching something. If only the time, effort and expense that these criminal activities entail was instead put into medical research, growing crops or painting a picture what a better, healthier and brighter place the world we would be and I'm sure that it would be more lucrative for the scammers too.
• There must be a lot of really trusting, naïve people out there or the scammers would have given up yonks ago. I don't want to be cheated out of my money but wouldn't it be great to be a person who believed what others were telling them. Those of us who don't fall for the scams may be better off financially but don't we also loose out on something by being so cynical?
• It's really hard to ignore a ringing phone. I keep thinking that I should just let the phone ring and not pick up each call, and although I have left the phone to ring for a few seconds, I always chicken out and grab the handset before the call disconnects. What if I ignore a call and it happen to be George Clooney, who unknown to anyone else, is filming in the area and wants me to be an extra in his movie? To be honest this is just as likely as my quasi-antique washing machine being covered by a guarantee still.
• What is the best way to respond to these calls? Should I keep the callers talking so at least they won't be cheating anyone else, should I confront and challenge them about their criminal behavior or should I just end the call?

I don't have a solution to this problem but I am sure that there really must be better ways to earn a living. The scammers are probably intelligent people but they are really wasting their talents. I feel that they should be pitied and encouraged to find a more moral occupation.


I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject and what can be done. But for now I must go; the phone is ringing and I'm pretty sure that it's George needing my acting talents, either that or I've won the Spanish Lottery.