dealing with spam

My email announced I had received such an honor, “You were recently chosen as a potential candidate to represent your professional community in Who’s Who in Business.”

I was so flattered. I filled out the application with my work history and received a thanks for my submission.

Weeks later a man called to say I definitely qualified. In fact, considering my varied background, he said that they would place my information in a more inclusive classification.

He followed all the praise with a question, “How many (of these very expensive) books would you like to buy? Would like to pay to have your picture in the book? And, (for another wad of cash) I’m sure you want to have your name put on a professional network website.”

I had one answer to everything, “No. No and no, thank you.” I have other uses for my money.

The man politely persisted. I declined. He offered another package deal. I told him I had to go to work. I refused to take him up on his offer of a better price. I declined monthly payments. I told him I was not interested in an alternate program. And he still was talking.

I told him I had to return to my work. He talked on.

“I have work to do, good-bye.” I hung up the phone before he could say anything else. I deleted all future emails with a similar slant.

I now have three email accounts of my own, plus access to our generic, departmental email. Seeing the same spam emails on two or three diminishes the effect. Today the editorial email received a “Bulk email.” It said that the recipient’s name of “editorial” matched some unspecified list for some wonderful reward, they had sent a previous email and were still waiting on a response.

Other days the editorial account receives emails that begin, “You do not know me but …. I have a lot of money to give away and I chose you.” or “You have won a lottery in some far off country and only need to …”

Sometimes I respond, “Well thank you very much. I am a reporter at this newspaper and we would love to follow the progress of this information in a feature story. I am sure our readers would love to hear more about the vast sums of money, fame and fortune that you promise.”

I have yet to receive a follow-up letter.

Ahhhh, the wonders of the age of the Internet. You can get scammed faster and for a lot more money than ever. But the wonders of the Internet also mean you can quickly check out the scam or that mysterious phone number on your caller ID or in your email.

Sometimes when I do not recognize a caller’s number on ID, I do a Google search and have generated a great deal of information.

If it is a legitimate number, I see a familiar name and say, “I know them.”

Other times Google displays numerous websites with hundreds of comments describing the numbingly similar experiences of others who received calls from that number and now warn others against answering that number.

Thanks to wwwdonotcall.gov you can now easily cut out most unwanted telemarketing phone calls. Just log onto the site, type in your phone numbers and an email address to verify you really do want the calls to stop. Then respond to the email they send to verify your request.

You can also cut out a lot of unwanted email by scrolling down to the end of the page for the tiny little word “unsubscribe” or the statement, “if you do not wish to receive further emails.”

A few years ago I discovered the same tiny message at the end of faxed advertisements. On a slow day, I gathered up several unsolicited faxes and began calling or emailing a request to stop calling. Within days our fax machine used a lot less of the expensive printing paper.

It takes time, but you can reduce the unwanted intrusions and save time and money.

(Joan Hershberger is a staff writer at the News-Times and author of “Twenty Gallons of Milk and Other Columns from the El Dorado News-Times.” Email her at jhershberger@eldoradonews.com)


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