A few minutes ago, a call from “Homestead Villa” rang on the phone. Note, the absence of the 717 prefix. This often happens with a local call. While our advice is always “DO NOT ANSWER THE CALL IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THE CALLER IS” we do answer all calls because this is a home office phone for our role of Link coordinator.

The “caller” was one of those annoying voice recordings announcing a FREE something or other. Immediately cleared the call.

Masked SPAM calls are become more and more frequent; getting people to respond to a known local call is part of the scam. The scammers technology is becoming more and more pernicious and sneaky.

The federal and state DO NOT CALL lists are ineffective and apparently the Federal Trade Commission is incapable of putting counter technology into play.

Pennsylvania’s Attorney General  is on record as saying, ‘Don’t answer the phone,’ AG Shapiro tells seniors how not to become scam victims.”

So, it appears our most vulnerable populations are being held hostage by technological and seemingly nobody cares enough to stop the hostage-takers.