662-246-2299

Yet another call about Medicare supplements. People about to turn 64 will be familiar with these calls. Constantly coming from an endless list of phone numbers. No caller id except OUT OF AREA. Or with some sort of mixture of letters that makes them sound vaguely legitimate. If you answer very many of them you will begin to realize that the same voices are calling from a variety of numbers. This particular caller voice asks for my husband (age 64) by name and when they are told he is not here, then they ask if I am able to make decisions for him. I always reply asking THEM why I would want to make decisions for him when he is perfectly able to make decisions for himself?  That is when the line goes dead. Which should tell anyone who is reading this comment that they are seeking my husband’s personal information, and possibly hoping the person they are calling will be addle-minded enough to give them the two most vital pieces of information with which they can wreak havoc in your personal life and bank accounts: your Social Security Number and your date of birth. Not to mention them trying to ferret out information that credit card companies use to verify if you are you when you call to ask them about your account: such as your mother’s maiden name, etc. so Seniors!  We are not an addle-mindrd group. 64 is the new 44!  Baby Boomers especially benefitted from (FDA rules?) that caused our favorite childhood junk foods to be vitamin-“ennriched”, and of course a growing awareness of what was good for us or not good for us — not to mention medical advances in vaccines, etc — all of which is fodder for another lengthy debate unrelated to this phone call.

I am not sure how to stop these calls BUT I do have a call-blocker on my home phone and I will be BLOCKING this call as it is one that has a familiar voice that has the same spiel used over and over, but always with a different probably faked phone number.

I do have one idea on how how to slow them down slightly: Answer the calls, if you have the time. And as soon as they say anything that reveals to you that they have anything to do with trying to sell (probably fake) Medicare supplemental insurance say nothing more. Just leave the phone off the line. Until their clicks and clicks finally end with them hanging up and a dial tone. We also have a “bullhorn” in our house with which we try to get the attention of family members on different levels of the house (actually we seldom use it now, or just use it to save our voices when calling the dog as we all have cell phones so our “intercom” system is just to call each other on our cell phones). I think I will try keeping it by our bed so when we are woken up by these calls, I can use the setting on the bullhorn that just makes an extremely loud sound like a police siren.

Most people, however, just don’t waste their time answering these calls. My friends call my cell phone. These “Medicare” calls come in on our home phone.

I would be very interested in knowing any other ideas people have for stopping these calls. Thank you in advance for your suggestions.