Pluggers by Rick McKee for October 22, 2023

Pluggers are tragic creatures?

Eh? Nobody me is knows ever entertain pesky telecallers.

I only “Wonder” when will the guy on the other line start to sing: “I just called to sell stuff to you”

My wife patiently waits for the end of the sales pitch and then goes into ours, “Do you know here you’ll spend eternity if you die in your sleep tonight, is your salvation in Christ Jesus secure, if not let me explain how it can be….”

How appropriate that they run this during Medicare Open Enrollment! My phone rang all last week. Almost CONSTANT! And most are robocalls, at least to begin with. I can tell then “GET LOST!” and they just continue their spiel! ARRRGGGGH!!The curse of being 65+!!

I love the extended warranty people calling. “Oh thank God! The engine blew up in my Ferrari, just last night! Is it covered?” CLICK……..

More likely to have some fun jerking them around.

Ummmm … No Thanks … Click ;-)

With the robocalls, I hang up. But if I get a live person I start with “long time no hear” then segue into asking about how their sister is handling her drug rehab, or their brother is managing his prison time for being a child molester.

Never.

I received a letter from the “extended warranty” company saying my warranty was about to expire. They wanted my VIN and milage for my 2015 Ford. The trouble is that my last Ford was a 1978 Ford F-250. OOPS. :-}

I found it a good way to stop them from calling back. I have also asked for their home number so I can call and chit-chat some time, especially around dinner time for them.

I loathe telemarketing calls. I maintain my phone for my convenience, not for the use of some nub someplace, hawking products or services I have absolutely no interest in, calling me without my consent…sigh.

Don’t like talking on a phone. I must be the really old Plugger.

I try to be polite with telemarketers and just tell them gently but as soon as possible that I’m not interested, ditto for people raising funds for worthy causes, but I’ve had fun letting scammers run on and on, and then saying things to the side to hint that I’m having their call traced by a law enforcement agency.

Uh, not quite. Lonely PEOPLE talk to telemarketers and anyone else that will listen. Enough older folks suffer sadly from loneliness for sure but it is not exclusive to them. Plenty of young folks suffer same, just handle it differently.

“What you’re saying sounds wonderful, give me your return phone number and I’ll have my friend call you. He’s a Nigerian Oil Minister.”

Now all day I get people trying to sell me Medicare Advantage plans. Hint: Don’t buy a Medicare Advantage plan.

I do miss having real conversations since husband got dementia, but not enough to waste time talking to strangers on the phone.

No way,not now,not EVER! I’ll talk to myself first! (Or just keep using “Robokiller” app which blocks unwanted calls AND texts!)

If you live in Kansas, you would welcome talking to anyone

Danger Danger. They may be recording your voice responses to be reused in other scams.

These are the people who cause the madness to grow. If no one talked to them, they would stop calling.

Actually, it’s a reverse scam to keep them talking and then shut them down. The longer they talk, the less money they make.

Don’t answer if you don’t recognize the caller ID.

Our answering machines answer all calls. We get the annoyance of the call, but generally their system hangs up as soon as it detects the machine.

When my niblings were young we were the emergency number for them at school. (Same true now for husband’s niblings as they are much younger.)

We had the phone ring once and the answering machine picked up. We could hear a woman saying “There’s no one there. The answering machine is on.” I heard the squeaky voice of my, then, very young nephew, saying " if you talk the machine will answer." I grabbed up the phone to talk.