Seems like there’s been quite an uptick in the number of IRS and Debt scams. These are scams which the caller pretends to be from the IRS or some Debt Collection company, and claim you owe money and the Sheriff, Police, etc are just hours away from arresting you and hauling you off to jail unless you pay them RIGHT NOW! Some of you may have already gotten these calls. Or maybe you know someone who has gotten one of these calls. Perhaps they even called where you work. Complaints have been filed, but for now, nothing is currently stopping them. While the FTC and other agencies have gotten complaints, the Wheels of Justice are just turning too slow and they are currently calling unimpeded by anything.
The IRS has issued warnings. Anti-Telemarketer forums are showing an increasing number of calls from a variety of numbers of these scam artists. News outlets are trying to warn us. They still call.
We have to take matters into our own hands, and take action to help ourselves and others.
They know our strength is in our numbers, but believe our weakness is our failure to engage
I really think the best way to get back at these people is to call them back, and try to keep them on the phone as long as possible. If enough people kept them on the phone, they couldn’t handle all the calls. Naive people would not be able to get through to get scammed. This is a crowd-source opportunity where we vastly outnumber them.
Their Standard Operating Procedure assumes that knowledgable people will not call back. That those that recognize the scam will avoid talking or dealing with them. Use their assumptions against them. We need to re-think how we deal with these people. Their strength is fear and hiding behind the anonymity of a telephone, but their weakness is the limited number of people to answer the phone. They know our strength is in our numbers, but believe our weakness is our failure to engage (call screening, call blocking, and hanging up).We need to stop being weak, and use our strength. If you do call back, it would be suggested to use a throw-away number such as Google Voice. Do not use a number that can be traced back to you.
The TCPA was passed in 1991. Over the past 2 decades, we really haven’t done anything different to deal with abusive Telemarketing. We don’t answer calls. We screen calls. We block calls. We may use NoMoRobo. All these are just variations of the same thing – avoid the telemarketer as possible. They know this, we’ve proved it to them year after year. And everything they do capitalizes on this.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results. – Various attributed authors
We need to so something different. Instead of shrinking away from these telemarketers, I suggest we actively engage them in conversation. Take our greater numbers against their limited resource, and make an impact. They can not sell, they can not scam, they can not profit if they are consumed by people who taken time from them, and give them nothing in return.
I challenge you to be different.
Comments are closed.