I have had a couple of phone calls this week from people who know that I have solar panels on the roof. There is clearly a body of information somewhere that is easy to read.
The list of people who invested in the panels years ago includes our names and our addresses. The caller is always smooth, calming and often poses as someone anxious to be of help to us old dears.
When they get to the part of the speech that tells me that all they have to do is go up into my loft to sort out any problems....I usually interrupt the spiel.
"No." I say very loudly.
That stops them but not for long. They then switch to the polystyrene carpet laid down years ago up there....it needs to be renewed apparently...
" It wouldn’t be expensive..." those words are meant to reassure but they remind me of the estimate I got after the first lot went up into the loft...
I still have it. The cost worked out at around two thousand pounds but it would save me a lot in the end.
I go into a short speech usually at this point.
"No one is going up into my loft."
This only throws them for a short while...until I interrupt with varying degrees of rudeness.
I am not alone in receiving these calls. Other single women with houses in the village also get them.
The men trying to persuade us that a visit into our lofts is necessary are not easily put off....the spiel continues no matter what I say.
They know that elderly ladies are not going up into their own lofts to check anything they say. They think we are easily persuaded...and some of us are..it’s true.
But the bottom line here is that once into our homes these men can easily find things that need to be done urgently....
I have tried to warn other women in this village....they really are all out to get us....some have already paid out thousands of pounds...and the call this week means they are still active....argh.....
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3 comments:
I have never had that sort of call, although I have had visitors offering to repair our roof sofits. Another is an offer to give us a new door and windows in a makover of our porch, which are perfectly servicieable.
Scammers on the phone are another quanity. At the moment the scam of favour is a recorded call that tells you that they are from BT and they have found that your intenet connection via your phone line has been compromized and you should press a key on your computer screen to download a program to clean up without the expense of calling out an engineer. The program is a virus, which takes over the computer and accesses online banking and identity details. Some people have lost a great deal of money by following these instructions. BT say they would never call you like that.
Another is the Inland Revenue scam(s) either tell you via phone or email or even text that you are due a refund and they would like to pay them directly into your bank. Again, giving away those details leads to the account or accounts being emptied.
You never hear of prosecutions from of people carrying out these scams, mainly because they come from abroad and are difficult to trace. I wonder how much effort is devoted by service providers to block this type of activity, very little it seems as the problem is too vast. User beware being their story. Banks will sometimes repay your losses if you are the victim of such a scam, but somm will not. A bit of a lottery it seems.
Why do you not just hang up?
Because sometimes they are legit....and until I’m sure I just listen .....
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