I was having a cup of coffee with my Dad at his apartment when the phone rang. He looked at the phone, then looked at me with a puzzled look on his face.
The Caller ID showed the call originated from my house.
A telemarketer had spoofed my number.
It could have been done by simply looking in the phone book and randomly picking someone with the same last name, or it could have been as sinister as meticulously tracking family connections. Either way, the object was clearly to deceive.
My father is 89 years old. He's mentally still fairly sound, but his hearing is very poor. A scam artist could have pretended to be me with a decent chance of success.
We have a system in place now where he will always talk to us about things only a real family member would know.
It just really sucks that we have to do this.
… I have gotten spam and robo phone calls using my family member's name... people that I have not spoken to in nearly 20 years... it is horrible that the phone system is almost set up to let this happen...
ReplyDelete