Yeah, we’ve noticed a lot of calls from our own area code and first three digits of our phone number, on the landline and cell phones. NPR had a recent article on it. We use NoMoRoBo.com, which helps on the landline at least.
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Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time available. (Parkinson was a real person, a civil servant who observed it in action.)
Before computers people dictated a half page memo that was typed by the typing pool and circulated to people who had to read it and pass it on.
Now a half page memo can be written on a computer in ten minutes and circulated to hundreds of people by email. But productivity does not increase in the real world, so it has to be turned into a PowerPoint, which then has to be made into a video “so the sales guy/whoever can’t mess it up” and then you have to schedule a whole lot of people to go to a room to watch it. The total productivity destruction is probably greater than the old type and circulate workflow.
So…a former colleague was at a NATO conference and there for the first time were some officers from Slovenia. That evening in the bar someone asked them “if WW3 had started, who do you think would have won?”
“That’s easy,” they said, “The Red Army would have reached the Rhine before you finished showing one another PowerPoints.”
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I had a new one the other night…
12:36 AM…phone rings…
I’m barely awake squinting at the screen…
I look and the number calling is…Mine?
Yep. That’s my picture from my phone on the caller ID.
Sleep addled brain figures if I’m calling myself, I’d better answer.
So I do…
This is AT&T and you phone is suspected of being used for fraudulent purposes.
To deny that you committed these fraudulent acts, enter the last four of your Social Security Number
I’m glad I only put in the first digit before realizing, this made NO sense and hung up.
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Eeeesh, that’s nasty. Thanks for spreading this scam around!
Edit: I mean knowledge of this scam around! So we know about it. Or something it’s late.
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I got a call like that a couple months ago. A bill collector (or somebody) wanted to know if I had a good phone number for Brian [my last name]. I don’t have any close family within 1000 miles of here, let alone in the same area code, nor am I related to anyone named Brian. Was for real or was it some kind of a scam? If it was for real, can they legally do that?
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No idea if it was a scam, but if someone lists you as a credit reference on an application and then dodges their creditors, bill collectors may indeed resort to harassing you in order to get to them…
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I don’t know, it sounds more like phone everyone with his surname, someone’s got to be related.
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I’ve gotten calls for both my mother and brother; we do not share the same surname.
Further, that seems a like a really ineffective way of going about tracking someone down, especially when you consider all the peeps with über-common surnames like Smith, Jones, Johnson, etc.
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It is totally ineffective, but they get paid for trying. So.
Every several months I get a call for a guy named Brad on my work number. Apparently he listed it as his work number years ago on a loan, and he never paid the loan back.
No, I don’t know who Brad is.
No, I’ve had this number for over five years. My predecessor was not named Brad.
Yes, this is a place of business.
It hasn’t happened lately, so maybe the promises to remove the number, or at least now it’s a dead end, have actually happened.
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I’m not sure how they would do that if they were not connected to me in any way. Maybe they came across my name somewhere and decided to list me as a reference, saying I was related when I wasn’t. Or, they made up a random first name to go with their last name. I would think there would be protections against that.
If I had to guess, it would probably be that they were calling everyone with the same surname.
My last name is definitely not super common. It’s common enough where I have met other people with the same surname (or one letter off), and have come across TV/movie/book characters with the same name, but it’s not nearly in the same category as Smith/Jones/Johnson. Just by calling everyone in my metro area with my surname, you could easily find a contact number for Brian in an afternoon.
The problem is, it might not be the right Brian.
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I didn’t say that the people they were calling about weren’t connected to you in anyway; I said if someone you know uses you as a reference on an application, you can end up on a call list. That could be done without your permission, (like it was to me.)
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And if they aren’t connected to me, and just wrote a random name on the application?
That’s possible if not very probable. How common is your name?
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My first name is very common. If they already had the last name and had to come up with a first name, it’s possible that they’d pull my first name out of the clear blue.
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Learned is a common first name?
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[shrugs] I guess not.
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Seems like it could easily be a randomly chosen name.
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When people use up as a verb.
There, I’ve said it.
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As in “up yours?” 
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There’s a shooter at Texas Tech right now. Do I try to get ahold of friends I think are likely to be on campus, or do I wait so lines aren’t tied up for emergency services?
Edit: Apologies if this is the wrong place. I hope this is just grinding my gears and not fucking today.
Edit2: Wellness check gone wrong, student the cops were checking on was shot. Situation contained. But if anyone knows the answer to this question, I would like to hear it. 3rd time this month I’ve seen a gun situation on a friend’s campus.
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