by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
A few weeks ago I was parked on the couch watching television and avoiding the horrid afternoon heat when my cell phone rang. The caller, actually a recording of a powerful American male voice, identified himself as "Agent David Gray of the Criminal Investigation Unit of the IRS." That got my attention, you betcha it did.
Agent Gray informed me in crisp, clear terms that I had been indicted for tax evasion and federal agents were on their way to my home to arrest me. At that point I was so flustered that I hung up the phone and rushed to collect my toothbrush and a few good books to enjoy in my prison cell while other people struggled to keep my yard mowed. Then I sat on the front porch and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . and nobody ever showed up. It was so disappointing!
Two days ago, late in the afternoon while I was outside hauling water to my young dogwood trees, Agent Gray called again. This time I was too busy to listen to his false promises, and hung up immediately. Fool me once . . . and all that stuff.
It turns out that the calls from Agent David Gray are a scam that has been in operation for the past five years or so. If I had stayed on the line, Agent Gray would have given me a quick opportunity to stay out of jail. All I would have to do to avoid imprisonment would be to rush into town and buy a prepaid debit card for a certain amount of money, and then call Agent Gray back at his special phone number and give him the numbers for that card. I could make a quick restitution and save myself a prison record.
What a deal!
In researching Agent David Gray on the internet I learned that telephone scams are a much bigger criminal operation than I ever suspected. Eleven percent of American adults claim to have lost money in phone scams last year alone - an average loss of $274 per victim and a total of around $7.4 billion. It's a big, big racket. Surprisingly, at least to me, millennials (those age 18-34) were more likely to be targeted than the elderly.
So why am I being targeted? I'm old, but not senile, and I have a fistful of college degrees. If I were on the other end of the operation and planning to perpetrate telephone scams, how would I choose my targets? One way to locate particularly gullible population centers might be to identify clusters of Trump voters - perhaps by zip code - and then purchase lists of phone numbers for those selected areas. But that's just a theory.
Some advice that I gleaned through the internet research on the exploits of Agent David Gray is to hang up as quickly as possible without pressing any response numbers. Also, recipients of these nuisance telephone calls may report them to the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Better Business Bureau.
Just don't sit back and smile in anticipation of the government sending you off to summer camp at a federal prison - because than just ain't a-gonna happen. Agent David Gray is as phony - and mysterious - as Trump's tax returns!
Citizen Journalist
A few weeks ago I was parked on the couch watching television and avoiding the horrid afternoon heat when my cell phone rang. The caller, actually a recording of a powerful American male voice, identified himself as "Agent David Gray of the Criminal Investigation Unit of the IRS." That got my attention, you betcha it did.
Agent Gray informed me in crisp, clear terms that I had been indicted for tax evasion and federal agents were on their way to my home to arrest me. At that point I was so flustered that I hung up the phone and rushed to collect my toothbrush and a few good books to enjoy in my prison cell while other people struggled to keep my yard mowed. Then I sat on the front porch and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited . . . and nobody ever showed up. It was so disappointing!
Two days ago, late in the afternoon while I was outside hauling water to my young dogwood trees, Agent Gray called again. This time I was too busy to listen to his false promises, and hung up immediately. Fool me once . . . and all that stuff.
It turns out that the calls from Agent David Gray are a scam that has been in operation for the past five years or so. If I had stayed on the line, Agent Gray would have given me a quick opportunity to stay out of jail. All I would have to do to avoid imprisonment would be to rush into town and buy a prepaid debit card for a certain amount of money, and then call Agent Gray back at his special phone number and give him the numbers for that card. I could make a quick restitution and save myself a prison record.
What a deal!
In researching Agent David Gray on the internet I learned that telephone scams are a much bigger criminal operation than I ever suspected. Eleven percent of American adults claim to have lost money in phone scams last year alone - an average loss of $274 per victim and a total of around $7.4 billion. It's a big, big racket. Surprisingly, at least to me, millennials (those age 18-34) were more likely to be targeted than the elderly.
So why am I being targeted? I'm old, but not senile, and I have a fistful of college degrees. If I were on the other end of the operation and planning to perpetrate telephone scams, how would I choose my targets? One way to locate particularly gullible population centers might be to identify clusters of Trump voters - perhaps by zip code - and then purchase lists of phone numbers for those selected areas. But that's just a theory.
Some advice that I gleaned through the internet research on the exploits of Agent David Gray is to hang up as quickly as possible without pressing any response numbers. Also, recipients of these nuisance telephone calls may report them to the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Better Business Bureau.
Just don't sit back and smile in anticipation of the government sending you off to summer camp at a federal prison - because than just ain't a-gonna happen. Agent David Gray is as phony - and mysterious - as Trump's tax returns!
No comments:
Post a Comment