Social Security Phone Scam: We’re Stopping Your Payments
Dear Readers:
Please consider this a most serious public service announcement specifically targeted toward senior citizens and persons receiving Social Security benefits.
Wednesday, July 3, 2019, evening at 7:24 PM, I received a telephone call on my landline, which I answered on the kitchen phone while hand washing dinner dishes. I don’t use a dishwasher; it’s a waste of resources.
Upon picking up the phone’s receiver, I heard a most imposing authoritarian male voice say, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘This is Social Security and we are calling to tell you we are discontinuing your payments’, to which I immediately screamed at the top of my voice, “F – – k You, Scammer.”
Potty mouth seems to work wonders, I’d say. Most telemarketers and other scam artists hang up immediately. That may be a tactic to remember, as those callers perceive you are more trouble than they want to deal with; you don’t frighten very easily, thus a waste of their scamming time and schemes.
The male caller went on to say, ‘If you would like more information, press one,’ which I did and immediately was disconnected from the call. Okay, so what did I do next since I’ve been hearing on the local Philadelphia all-news radio about such scam sham Social Security office phone calls cleverly using technology to use Social Security office phone numbers as caller IDs?
I went to the phone with a caller ID screen and there I found the following:
US Gvt Soc Sec 877-405-1451
Hint: Gvt not Gov, as the official designation
which I redialed immediately only to hear the following prompt: You have reached the Springfield Social Security Office; our hours are 9AM to 4PM daily. Why the phone call then at 7:24 PM?
Dutifully, I listened to their message and prompts, which took me to where I found the following information for reporting the scam:
- Office of the Inspector General telephone number: 800-269-0271
- To file an online official complaint visit the website: OIG.SSA.gov
The above personal experience indicates how technology has provided more angst for our daily lives, especially targeting individuals using fear techniques some cannot resist, but give in to scammers’ demands. Don’t dare!
I can tell you I’ve been a Targeted Individual (TI) for many years and have learned how to deal with telephone and cyber criminals.
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Here are my tactics:
a. If you can, force yourself to use “potty mouth” or “salty” language, something I don’t like but it works. However, that tells the caller you are a hard-core, seasoned “veteran” who knows how to deal with scammers and cyber thieves.
b. Use the similar tactics for email harassment too.
c. Don’t engage in conversation with the caller other than the above, but demand they remove your telephone number from their call lists.
d. Bang down the receiver as hard as you can, so as to blow off their ears. Not nice, but really appropriate since they are trying to scam you.
e. Immediately call back the number in your ID screen, when you most likely will hear a prompt saying, “You have reached a non-working number; hang up and dial again.”
f. Learn to screen your calls and not answer a non-recognizable name or phone number.
I like the ones the caller ID screen identifies as “Caller unknown.”
g. Regarding computer email harassments: don’t open unrecognizable emails, especially avoid opening any embedded links within an email, and report them as junk email, either phishing or block.
Wait! It’s only going to get worse the more high tech and microwave generated surveillance we encounter or have forced upon us. Learn now how to avoid all that will be coming your way. You lived before all this high tech BS, and you can live now without it too. I do!
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice, plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer health issues researcher and holistic health advocate since the late 1970s; she continues researching and writing in retirement. Her career in holistic healthcare began in the early 1970s when she had to save, and restructure, her life resulting from having “fallen through the allopathic medical paradigm cracks.”
Catherine has written numerous books. The following can be purchased on Amazon books:
Eat To Beat Disease, Foods Medicinal Qualities (2016)
Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines (2013)
A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments (2012)
Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009)
Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008)
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