By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 23, 2024 | The telephone, once considered a marvel for communications, is becoming more of a nuisance that is bugging many of us.
Over the years, Alexander Graham’s Bell’s invention has been through various stages of development, mostly welcomed. But recently, matters have changed drastically.
No, we aren’t referring to most everyone’s use of cell phones. That was an overnight sensation and welcomed innovation. Granted, it has also become a problem for parents (and some adults) who are addicted to it, but this is not our focus today.
Have you found that many times when the phone rings, and you answer it, there’s no one on the line? It’s happened to us frequently. We’ve tallied it for the last 10 business days. We get an average of 10 such calls a day! Now that’s an intrusion on our daily lives.
We suspect it’s happening to you, too.
Today one was offering me accident coverage; another wanted me to sign up for final burial expense coverage; and another was “in my area” to assess whether I needed a new roof. And that’s not mentioning over-and-over calls about cable, or high speed phone service, or signing up for Medicare coverage. That last alone must have been responsible for 25 percent of the calls this month from different providers.
Another element: for some reason, it seems that many of those people placing calls are not from around here. They definitely have so much of a foreign accent that sometimes we can barely understand them. We presume that’s because robo operators pay low wages, and those who cannot find jobs in other places take these low-wage paying jobs. (Boy, such jobs must be boring as well as most unuseful.) Not being able to fully understand what those callers say makes it even more useless.
Some suggest that we in metropolitan areas get more robo calls than others. In other words, Zip Codes matter. But most of us don’t want to move because of those calls!
What can the average person do?
First, get on the No Call List. Go to Google, and it’s easy. We thought maybe we had fallen off that list. But no, your number doesn’t leave the list. That makes all those robo calls not only bothersome, but also illegal. But punishing the callers is virtually impossible.
We don’t have an answer. We don’t want to un-connect our household from the phone lines. After all, today we all need our phones to keep connected to friends and family. We suspect even the best efforts of the Georgia Legislature can’t find a way to halt or penalize those trying to get us to buy something, or change our lives, via the phone lines.
Can you suggest a solution? If so, we all certainly want to hear it. Robo calls are so insidious that whoever solves this problem might be considered for the Nobel Prize! So far we have not heard viable ideas. If you know a way to halt this telephone pest, pass it along. After all, we all want a solution to the robo call problem.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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