Yesterday (April 21, 2009), some woman with a Jamaican-sounding accent said, "Is James there?" I promptly hung up, since the same bunch -- who purport to be selling cheap pharmaceuticals -- has been calling me for years under a variety of sham phone numbers from various U.S. area codes. The only reason I answered this one was because it appeared to be local (I'm in the 317 area code too), but I should have paid attention to the "OUT OF AREA" text on the second line of my caller ID. It doesn't help to say, "There's no one here by that name," because then the caller asks if I'd be interested in buying pharmaceutical products. In the past, as soon as I heard the "Is James there?" line, I've simply set my phone down and walked off for a few minutes, leaving the hapless caller to say, "Hello? Hello?" while wasting time for nothing. However, I'm convinced that the best way to deal with these scammers is to never answer my phone to any long-distance, toll-free or OUT OF AREA number I don't recognize.
Yesterday (April 21, 2009), some woman with a Jamaican-sounding accent said, "Is James there?" I promptly hung up, since the same bunch -- who purport to be selling cheap pharmaceuticals -- has been calling me for years under a variety of sham phone numbers from various U.S. area codes. The only reason I answered this one was because it appeared to be local (I'm in the 317 area code too), but I should have paid attention to the "OUT OF AREA" text on the second line of my caller ID. It doesn't help to say, "There's no one here by that name," because then the caller asks if I'd be interested in buying pharmaceutical products. In the past, as soon as I heard the "Is James there?" line, I've simply set my phone down and walked off for a few minutes, leaving the hapless caller to say, "Hello? Hello?" while wasting time for nothing. However, I'm convinced that the best way to deal with these scammers is to never answer my phone to any long-distance, toll-free or OUT OF AREA number I don't recognize.