$$$: Email and phone scams are increasing. You can get taken for thousands.

[Cyrano]

No matter how smart or savvy you are, you can be taken. Trust me on this. I have smart friends who fell, or almost fell, for an email of cell phone ripoff.

You may get an email with the logo of your bank or your credit card, or some other entity that holds your savings or investments. Don't trust it. Call your bank, your credit card company, (or other), tell them what you've received, and ask if they sent it.

The email/call may be from "a long lost son/daughter." It may be from a "bank" saying you're account has been compromised. It may be from your insurance company saying you're behind and that they'll drop you if you don't pay immediately.

The variations are endless. I live in an area of Florida in which many seniors have been victimized through email, cell phones, and even their land lines, and taken for thousands of dollars.

None of us are immune to today's sophisticated scams. Me included. Many of them are brilliant.

Here's the cue to the scam. Money. The second a credit card, or a bank account, or other financial institutions are mentioned, alarms should go off in your brain. Cut it short and directly contact the bank, credit card company, etc., that they claim to be.

And they have now moved onto text messages. If you don't know who a text is from, don't open it.

[Peregrine Took]

1. We were getting the ones for car warranties now its debt relief! Landline - what a pain. n/t

[multigraincracker]

2. I'm getting fewer now.

I answer a call, wait 10 seconds on my watch and say in my most mechanical voice. Hello.
Seems doctors offices and important calls laugh it off and stay on. Other give up quickly as time is money to them. Plus getting fewer calls.

When you are old, tired and bored, it can be fun.

[Genki Hikari]

8. For fun

I've considered recording the greeting I get when I call the supermarket pharmacy. It sounds like a computer trying too hard to sound like a real person, and failing miserably. that would be perfect for yanking scammers around. Not that I get that many of them, but yanking scammers around is always good.

Yeah, I was that person in the 80s who used to mess with people via my answering machine greeting. Like the recording that only said, "WHAT?" Very aggressively.

That was it.

Eventually, I settled on dead silence until the beep. That one cut back on a lot of hassle in my life.

Every now and then, I get the "mess with people," itch again, but I ignore it for the standard, dead-boring, "You have reached (number). Please leave a message after the tone." Or however it goes. I've had the provider too long to remember the wording.

[Farmer-Rick]

3. Then there are catfishing scams

And phone scams, and IRS and threatening law enforcement scams, and phony prize winner scams.

And don't forget the 3 most profitable scams in the US: Amway, Timeshares and Reverse Mortgages. It's just never ending.

Because so many scams are constantly thrown at you, one or two are bound to get through. You sometimes let your guard down or forget to read the fine print and that's when they get you.

Since our government never prosecutes these scams they just keep proliferating. If one or two are caught, they are let off with a slap on the wrist. The Supremes even blessed the multi level schemes like Amway.

[Initech]

4. Yeah my parents' landline gets flooded with scam calls and robodialers. Work main line too.

We hang up on every single one of them. If you don't know who it is, don't answer it. If you don't recognize the number, don't answer it. Shit is getting ridiculous.

[kimbutgar]

5. I keep getting an email from Amazon saying my account is locked because of some of my

Purchases. They have you click on a link and given your password. At the bottom of the email is no information where it came from. I hadn’t purchase anything from Amazon in weeks! I marked them as spam.

[IcyPeas]

6. yesterday and today I got emails saying final notice you're Macafee account will be frozen...

and I don't even have Macafee.

and legitimate businesses don't send out threatening sounding emails to their customers.

thank you for the reminder Cyrano.

[Cyrano]

7. An older man I know got a call that his credit card

was used to buy a $2,000 refrigerator at Home Depot. Further, he was told that someone would be there in minutes to retrieve his card so that no one else could use it to defraud him.

Withing, 10 minutes, someone actually showed up and took his credit card. It took him awhile to grasp how stupid he'd been.

When these scam artists actually show up at your door, you know how bold they've gotten. These pricks would take a senior's life savings and feel no guilt. Well, actually, these thieves are non political and don't care who they steal from. The Republicans, on the other hand, wouldn't pause to legalize any scams from which they profited.

[Genki Hikari]

9. I don't get these calls.

I was getting the car warranty people for a while, but even they gave up.

Maybe it's because I don't answer any number I don't recognize. If I don't know it, they're probably up to no good. If it's someone I do need to talk to and it's important, they'll leave a message.

If they did leave one saying they were from an insurer, bank, or anything else, call this number, then

a) I'd know if they were full of it or not. Certain entities (like, oh, Amazon) will never call me unless i ask them to.

b) That leaves the unknown numbers for people I might need to talk to. This tends to happen with MDs who sometimes call me from a personal cellphone rather than a work number, of when a clinic got a new phone number extension that I don't recognize.

Regardless, the mrssage has to be from someone I know.

Even then, I would ignore a request to call an unknown number in the message, and call back with the number I programmed into my contacts, long ago.

So it doesn't take much to outwit these dirtbags. Practice good phone hygiene, and you won't get scammed.