In the lives of most people there are times when they must exercise restraint. My restraint has always been an issue in the areas of diet and exercise, and I’m not good at either. My exercise is limited and my diet is not. There are however other areas where I have recently discovered that I must use restraint. Thus far I have been perfect at this restraint, but it is causing me stress and stress is the last thing I need right now. There is more than enough of that during this time.
On occasion I receive e-mails that make me nervous. They are always sent by companies that I deal with on a regular basis. The most recent one was from Amazon. Amazon and I are great buddies but until three days ago I had never received an e-mail from anybody in that outfit. The e-mail frightened me because, as close as Amazon and I are, the e-mail I received alerted me to the fact that we are breaking up! Yes! Amazon wrote that they are temporarily suspending my account due to suspicion of fraudulent activity. In the text of this e-mail, they also explained that my address information was incorrect. The sender asked that I supply them with information regarding my recent purchases and at the same time they wanted me to update my address information. I had no idea what any of this meant. There were no charges for anything other than what I knew I had purchased. And I knew my address information was correct since it had never been a problem before. My go-to person for many of these things is my most techie friend Amy so I called her and before I even finished wailing about this latest problem, she interrupted me with a shout of SCAM! She said “Hannah, I think you are the scam lady of North America. Nobody gets as many scams as you do and certainly nobody falls for it as often as you do.” The only thing I have learned is that I should never respond to these messages, and to call Amy for help. However, never one to take chances, she advised me that, just to be certain, I should call Amazon and check it out. I did that and—of course—it was indeed a scam. My Amazon account functions just fine. WHEW!
Another recent scam is that I keep getting texts from USPS telling me that the recent merchandise I ordered is sitting in a warehouse and is undeliverable because of incorrect address information that I supplied. Noch amull (here we go again) . . . I’m being told that my address information is either incorrect or incomplete. Not only have I never supplied an incorrect address or incomplete information, I have not ordered anything from anyone that has not been delivered to me.
And here is where I need to exercise restraint. I am so tempted to answer these e-mails and texts. I would love to write things such as “get lost,” “knock it off,” “who do you think you’re kidding,” etc. In an effort to be honest, there are several other messages I would like to send in response, but they are not printable words!
My restraint in the areas of diet and exercise is about as close to nil as it can be but, when it comes to dealing with scammers, I’m doing well because thus far I have not faltered. I credit Amy with this too because each time I call her to tell he about the latest message that is scaring me (or confusing me) she always tells me not to respond.
I don’t understand exactly what scammers get out of doing these things, but I suspect that although I don’t know the answer, I have to assume that there must be some benefit to them. That’s just the way it is. n
Hannah Berman lives in Woodmere and can be reached at Savtahannah@aol.com or 516-295-4435. Read more of Hannah Berman’s articles on 5TJT.com.
