Next Door Neighbors by Pat Sandy for April 19, 2023

I love the emails that start out…“Dearest, my husband left me a kerjillion dollars, bit it’s in a bank in New York. If you sent me $10.000.00 to retrieve it, I’ll give you $100,000.00.” Must be legit, they called me Dearest.

I was at a store talking with a friend when his phone rang. He showed me the caller id, which was his name and number. He answered it and it was a telemarketing call which had spoofed his name and number. I wish there were some way to press a button and fry the computers that generate those calls.

I get text messages from these kind of people from time to time. They are addressed to some guy named Gabriel, who must have had my phone number before me. I got my “final notice” one time to collect a settlement I never asked for of several thousand dollars (just click on some clearly fake link). Deleted it, then a couple weeks later, I got my “third notice”.

I get these kind of calls all the time. I usually tell them that my license is revoked (It isn’t), and I no longer drive.

“Sorry, my car is at the bottom of the lake, along with the evidence.”