mcgrew's Journal: Evil-X strikes again

I was getting ready to pick Kathie up when the phone rang. Leila was beside herself. "Dad! Mom wants to talk to you!"

"Well, I don't want to talk to her."

"But she says that if you don't call this number you're going to jail!"

"Leila, I'm not going to jail. I haven't broken any laws, there aren't any warrants out for me."

"She says it has to do with money!"

"We don't have debtor's prison, hon. Calm down, it's ok." I figured that Evil-X was trying to scare me into filling out forms for her to collect on my pension; her lawyer hadn't filed the paperwork and it looked like I was going to get out of having her and Goober take part of my pension. It's bad enough that they steal Leila's disability check from her every month.

Halfway to Kathie's it rang again. It stopped ringing before I got the phone out of my pocket; it was Leila again. I pulled up at Kathie's and it rang again. This time it was Patty, and she was crying hysterically. "Dad, are you ok?" she sobbed. "Yeah, Patty, I'm fine," I answered. "It's just your mom starting shit again."

"I thought you were hurt or something! Leila called Grandpa and he called me, I have to call him back" she said, relieved that her old man was all right. We drove to my house.

No sooner did Kathie and I open beers than the phone rang again -- Leila, of course. "Dad, you have to call that number, I don't want you to go to jail!"

"Damn it, Leila, I'm not going to jail! Calm down and relax and quit spoiling my nice afternoon!"

"But dad, you have to call..."

"Goodbye, Leila. I'll call you later." I hung up. It rang again. I ignored it and put a movie on. It rang three more times, Leila calling. Damn that evil mother of hers, I thought. Half an hour later someone pounded at the door. I lifted the shade -- it was Leila. "Here," she said, shoving an envelope with a telephone number on it at me, "you have to call that number!"

"Ok, Leila" I said as she walked back to Evil-X's car. I paused the movie, changed it to the internet and typed the number into Google. It was a fraudster's scam! I called Leila's number back; she didn't answer. She called me back twenty minutes later. "You called?"

"Yeah, Leila, punch that number into Google. It's a scam. It's someone trying to steal my money."

"It is? HEY MOM! It's a scam!" I could hear her mother in the background saying "what do you mean it's a scam?" Gees but that woman is stupid.

"She says what do you mean?"

"Tell her to google the number."

"He says to google the number." She said something that was too muffled for me to hear. Leila said "She wants to know how to google a number."

As Terry Pratchett puts it, Evil-X is not only not the sharpest knife in the drawer, she's a spoon. An evil spoon. The Matrix was wrong, there is a spoon, and it's Evil-X. I sighed, my head almost asploding at X's stupidity and ignorance. "Look, pull Google up, type that number in, and hit 'enter'. You'll see that the people who called your mom are running a scam; a racket. They're trying to steal my money! Or maybe hers. Now goodbye!"

The rest of the evening was pleasantly unjournalworthy.

.

You have to read this post ...

[Barbara, not Barbie]

.. or you're going to jail!

How much do you want to bet they already scammed your ex, and that sound you heard was the penny dropping?

Re:

[mcgrew]

I wouldn't bet against that, she's pretty stupid. She married Goober earlier this year, he hadn't paid income tax for eight years and almost went to prison for it. The feds get his whole paycheck so Evil-X (and Leila) are supporting the worthless SOB. So she would be particularly vulnerable to the scam (besides being one of the dumbest people I've ever met).

Hidden Message!

[rk]

I have a policy of Googling EVERY number that calls me that I don't recognize.

Re:

[mcgrew]

Same here. There was a telemarketing firm that was calling my cell ten times a day, googled it when I got home. When I found out it was telemarketers it pissed me off; I don't have to pay for minutes but most folks do, it would have cost them money. So I pulled an old trick my dad always uses with telemarketers -- waste their money. When they call, when you get a live human on the line just lay the phone down while they make their schpiel, checking now and then to see if they're still talking. They usually

Re:

[pwizard2]

A long time ago, I remember hearing that telemarketing on cell phones is illegal. Unfortunately, most of those telemarketers are running scams anyway, so breaking one more law isn't going to matter to them very much.