For Anyone Needing a Smile - and a Lesson Dealing with Scammers

So most of us are undergoing probably one of the most stressful years in recent history. There's the COVID pandemic, the ensuing economic downturn, and major protests going on. It's like the 1918 pandemic meets the beginnings of the Great Depression meets 1968.

Seriously, I think most of us will be glad to give new meaning to the phrase Hindsight is 20/20.

This morning, while looking over Facebook, a friend (a professor who teaches journalism at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg) mentioned dealing with a phone call/telemarketer, managing to get the person to hopefully never call again.

I responded by posting how I've dealt with scammers by posting a link to this blog from 2013.

This got me thinking about a call I got years ago when I got to really have fun with the scammers.

I've known Candy (not her real name) for y-e-a-r-s. One afternoon, she called me on my cell phone, panicking.

"I just got a call from the IRS. The recording said that they've got a warrant for me, and to call them back. They left a phone number."

I assured her that it was a scam.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, definitely."

About this time, my home phone rang, and darned if I didn't get the same stupid recording!

"You won't believe this, but I just got the same call."

"Wow, what are the odds?"

At that point, I decided to show Candy how to deal with these scammers. "I'm going to call the number, and put the home phone on speaker phone so you can hear."

"Okay."

At that point, I dialed punched in a couple of numbers to mask my home phone number, then the phone number the recording wanted me to call. When the heavily accented person answered, claiming to be "John Smith," the first thing he asked was for my number. The conversation went (approximately) as follows:

Me: Sorry, I can't give that out, but I can give you my name.

John: Okay. Last name first.

Me: Patel. (Not my real last name, but that's part of the charm.)

John: Okay. First name?

Me: Skittles (yes, like the candy).

John: Can you spell that?

At that point, I spelled it for him.

John: I found it! You owe the IRS $5,000! Now, your address, please?

I gave him the address to the local post office, along with a 6-digit P.O. box. (The local post office only has 4-digit p.o. boxes, so I figured I was safe.)

John: Okay, we do have the police enroute to arrest you, as we speak.

Me: How can we fix this so I don't get arrested?

John: I am authorized to help you in this situation...

At this point, he said that if I'd pick up $1000 of gift cards...

I kept the ruse going for several more minutes before finally admitting that Skittles Patel was not my real name. I did mention that my next-door neighbor was a high-ranking IRS agent at the local office, that my father was a high ranking official with the Tampa Bay office of the FBI, my brother, who was sitting right next to me, worked for the Secret Service (all three of which were not true, but considering I was dealing with a bold-voiced scammer, I figured all bets were off - in real life, I'd never b.s. like this), and, oh, by the way, in about two minutes, there'd be approximately 15-20 large sedans pulling up to the building the scammer was calling from, each sedan with 3-4 federal agents, all ready to arrest everyone in his office.

There was an ever-so-slight pause before I heard John call out (not into the phone, but to his coworkers), "Code Black, Code Black, Code Black! Everyone vacate the premises now!" Then the line went dead.

By now, Candy was laughing hard; it took her a minute to catch her breath.

"I never would've thought of doing that!" she gasped.

"Still think that the IRS is after you?"

"No," was her answer.

While we then went on to talk about other things - her family, my family, life in general - I hope this helped you in three ways: (1) I hope you realize that this is not how the IRS would contact you (they'd do it by mail on official IRS stationary); (2) you can either ignore the scammers or give 'em the grief they deserve; and (3) you've at least gotten to laugh...which is a good thing during these trying times.

Be Safe

To all my friends, both online and in real life, please be safe. These are tough times: COVID, job losses due, in part, to COVID, and now the rioting among those who don't understand (or care) the difference between peaceful protests that affect positive change and violence that makes things much, much worse.

Be safe, if you're part of the protests. Remember: peace begets peace, violence begets violence.

Be safe, if you're a journalist - print, network news, independent, photographer - letting the public know what's going on, especially (but not exclusively) if you're a person of color (non-white). We need you to STAY SAFE!

Be safe, if you're a police officer, firefighter/EMT/paramedic, member of the National Guard, etc., and remember those protesting peacefully are your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, decent human beings...and act accordingly.

Be safe, if you run across police, firefighters, National Guard, etc. Remember that they are also your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, decent human beings...and act accordingly.

We are all in this together. If we can remember that, if we can remember that most of us are decent people, if we hold the bad accountable while helping each other out, no matter that person's race, gender, ethnicity, religion, or any other "different-from-me," we can get through this.

One last thought: in 5, 10, 20 years, when someone asks you, "What did you do during 2020, when everything was going to hell?", how do you want to be able to respond? That you made a positive difference in someone's life? Or that you were a violent vandal? Think about that when you go out.

And be safe.

I wrote this yesterday, with one or two minor changes, and posted it on Facebook after reading and viewing reports, including in the Tampa Bay Times and other newspapers and network news, of violence and looting during protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The anger is understandable; most people - regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, etc - have expressed anger at his death, and how it happened. The peaceful protests can hopefully have a positive affect on life; violence and looting won't help at all.

And Then it Got Real...: The New Normal

Life has a way of changing on so many levels: something comes along and the scenery changes, the way we do things change, and that, in turn, changes the way we see things, perceive them, even as we change with the ongoing evolution of whatever instigated these changes.

Since the beginning of the year, we've heard about the coronavirus. Medscape has an interesting slideshow/article about COVID-19. Apparently the coronavirus has been around longer than many of us realize, according to the Medscape article. But this version, what we're going through now, was pinpointed in January of this year, starting in Wuhan, China. (The wikipedia site mentioned December 2019 as the start, with a World Health Organization link pinpointing it to December 31, 2019.)

At first, most people I know seemed to feel that it was a problem for others, people someplace else. After all, this is the United States; certainly, this wouldn't affect us.

Until it did. Reports started coming in about the virus going worldwide. It affected people across Asia, Europe, the U.K., and, yes, the Americas - Canada, Mexico, and the good ol' U.S. That's when shit started to get real for many of us.

Soon, though, we started getting a little complacent. It can't/won't get worse, we figured. As long as we live right, we'll be okay.

Then, Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, came down with COVID-19. While many of us have our own favorite actors and movies and TV shows, Hanks has been a popular person, due, in part, for seeming like one of us, not egotistical. The fact that he and his wife got COVID-19 made it real.

But then, it looked like the pair was going to get better (they did get well), and we could breathe a sigh of relief. See? It's survivable, especially for regular people.

But then the virus spread, and people were getting sick and, in too many cases, dying. Many of us knew someone who'd contracted it, and suddenly, it got real...

In March, gatherings were being canceled. At first, it was advised to avoid gatherings where more than 250 were expected, then gatherings greater than 50, then 10.

This, of course, affected most of us, to one degree or another. The city of Pinellas Park (Florida) canceled their 30th annual Country in the Park celebration ("Strange Times We're Living In..."). City council meetings are now virtual affairs, rather than open-to-the-public meetings. (In fact, the city hall is officially closed to the public for the duration.) Schools nation-wide are closed, with students learning online. (Yes, this includes colleges and universities.) Grocery stores, at least where I live, have colored tape on the floors to indicate how far to stand apart at the check-out lines. Publix, probably the most popular grocery chain in Florida, now has colored tape on floors indicating which way to walk through each aisle, so that the aisles are now one-way. More than once, I've heard people - both customers and workers - point out to others, "Excuse me, but you're going the wrong way!" Yikes!

Yes, it got real.

Life changed in other ways. Businesses are furloughing employees, while the number of people out of work due to COVID-19 has grown to crazy numbers. (My son, M., has been furloughed, and having loads of fun - note the touch of sarcasm - trying to work through Florida's unemployment website.) Easter services were virtual, including the Easter service from the Vatican City, with Pope Francis holding the service via TV. Beaches were closed, though some beaches in northern Florida are starting to open. (The photos from these beaches show people getting too close; so much for social distancing!)

Then, several weeks ago, the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) announced that they'd be publishing only twice a week (Sunday and Wednesday) for the duration. Since many non-essential businesses have had to close for the duration of the pandemic, these businesses are no longer buying ads until they're able to get back to work. This, of course, affected the paper's income. It is still available online; subscribers can log in and see what the paper would look like the rest of the week.

This stuff got real...

This seems to be the new normal, wondering how long we'll be quarantined, when people can get back to work, when people can actually get back to the old normal. At this point, having life back to the way it was, or something similar, would be welcome.

In the meantime, here's hoping we all stay well and safe.

Strange Times We're Living In...

The call came down a week ago: due to the spread of the coronavirus, the city of Pinellas Park (Florida) was canceling it's annual Country in the Park event. These are strange times we're living in.

This was supposed to be the 30th Annual celebration that the city puts on every March, starting in 1991. The city's annual Chili Blaze Cook-Off, held the day before the County in the Park, was also canceled. The Chili Blaze, run by the city's Fire Department, raises money for Muscular Dystrophy.

In a way, it was probably a bit of a relief to have both canceled. My youngest son, J., and I had never missed a Country in the Park celebration; M., my next-to-youngest, had only missed one (2018) due to a work schedule, as well as what probably turned out to be the lamest of the annual event. By the time M. got off work, J. and I had already headed home, not lasting more than maybe half-an-hour. Fortunately, last year's was somewhat better, and, with the fees for local arts and crafts people reduced to what it had been, years earlier, as well as what seemed like a ramped-up musical stage, it looked like this year's event would be good.

Country in the Park, 2019



Pinellas Park Art Society's booth at the 2019 Country in the Park



But the flip side was the fact that the state and federal governments were warning people about being in large groups. First it was to avoid any group greater than 250 people, especially for anyone over a certain age or who had any underlying conditions. Then, it was avoid any gatherings greater than 50, then 10. It was crazy. And, because the annual events - both the Country in the Park and the Chili Blaze Cook-off - tended to bring out a large portion of the city's population, both events were canceled.

While I completely understood the cancelation, it just felt strange not heading out: it was the third Saturday in March, we'd gone to so many of the yearly events, and when things are getting a little stressful (which this whole coronavirus this is), it's nice having something fun to look forward to.

2011 Chili Blaze





Crowd, 2012 Chili Blaze



While M. and I had gone to only two of the Chili Blazes the night before the Country in the Park (both in 2011 and 2012), the Chili Blaze was always popular, have food and bands to help attract crowds.

Band, Chili Blaze





Suite Caroline, Chili Blaze 2012





All told, with any luck, both events - Chili Blaze and Country in the Park - will be back next year. Hopefully, the coronavirus won't make people too scared to start gathering together in the future.

We can only hope.

Vendors, Country in the Park