Telephone Line

So today I got a new and inventive fraud attempt foisted upon my quiet Saturday. I received a text from "Chase Fraud" saying I needed to call their 800 number or my card would be inactive -- due to "suspicious activity."  Well, we do have a Chase card, and usually these fraud texts are misspelled -- this one looked kosher.  So I called the 800 number, which asked for my Debit Card number. Aha! We don't HAVE a debit card.

Like most folks, I get several of these calls daily. I'm on the Do Not Call list, which seems worthless. Wifey read that you're supposed to answer the bad call and hang up -- supposedly you then make some kind of algo list that says you're not a good fraud mark.

I've begun simply not answering unless I know the number -- legit ones, of course, leave a message.

Such is modern life.

We DID find a way to eliminate the annoying calls to our landline. We got rid of our landline. Those calls were worse -- watching TV, and then the loud house phone rings.

We had an electronic phone system in the house -- it came through our internet provider, and then some kind of amplifier sent it to the far flung extensions. It broke -- and the phones stopped ringing -- we only knew we got a call when we were watching TV and the incoming number came on the screen.

I took it as a sign -- no further need for the landline. I had our alarm company switch us to a fully cell system -- safer anyway, they said, since a master burglar would cut the phone lines anyway before attempting to breach our security. Ha. As if. Other than our dogs, we have nothing here of real value. A burglar to our house would be a benefit -- get rid, maybe, of some of the clutter.

Anyway, we canceled the landline, which was only a bit sad since it was a palindrome: 6693966. My friend Jim pointed that out -- he sees those patterns immediately -- he thinks it's due to psychelics he took at North Miami High during the 70s...

Someone at the office mentioned to me that landlines are safety measures -- they stay on in power outages. Wrong!  After Irma in '17, some older parents of a friend of mine asked me to sue ATT. They had kept their landline for exactly that reason -- when the power was out following a storm, the landline would give them communication access.

So Irma came, their power was out, and they picked up their trusty old princess phone and...dead. Turns out ALL calls these days are VOIP -- some acronym meaning that there are no old fashioned phone systems -- when the power goes, ALL phones are out. 

So it was adios landline...

Wifey and I were out with our sister of another mister Mirta, who is one of my more tech savvy friends. She has an Apple watch, and was showing it to us. Wifey and I both had the same reaction: Dick Tracy! We really do now have watch phones. I guess implanted ones are next -- maybe flash out the incoming number on glasses or contact lenses.

What a glorious world this is.

And I still don't have a debit card.