Spam Phone Calls

I received a phone call from Woonsocket, Rhode Island (USA) and totally ignored it. In fact I deleted it. I do not know anyone in Woonsocket or the entire state of Rhode Island. The call was either a wrong number or what is called "spam." (The derisive word "SPAM" comes from a canned spiced ham product which many people consider to be awful but which many others enjoy. It has a reputation similar to that of the also unfairly maligned fruit cake.)

Spam phone calls are a particular problem in the United States. Massive numbers of automated phone calls are sent by businesses trying to increase their profits or are sent to deliver a particular message (often political) to as many people as possible.  This type of Spam is merely a nuisance. In 2017, the United States Federal Trade Commission received 7,157,370 complaints about spam calls. The problem is escalating. There were 4.5 billion reported spam phone calls in the United States in June of 2018. These spam phone calls are essentially total garbage.

A second type of spam calls is is intended to be hostile and is criminal. One form of these aggressive attacks is intended to completely clog up phone lines and render them useless. This is a form of denial of service attack.

An even more criminal type of spam attempts to deceive or trick as many people as possible to respond to the call and to voluntarily give out their personal information such as bank account numbers, credit card numbers, computer sign-on passwords, etc. The motive here is to steal money.

In today's world  everyone is constantly surrounded by what is essentially SPAM; totally worthless garbage. Messages flood at us from television, movies, radio, music, books, news organizations, junk mail, flyers, and other people. The vast majority of it is secular or explicitly non-Christian. Some of it is malignantly anti-Christian.

There is an old saying in the Southern United States about a person so holy and high-minded that he or she is of no use in the real world. This is not what God wants. He wants us to let Him use us for His purposes here in the real world. We are told to he holy (separated) because God is holy, but we are also told to be "in the world but not of the world." Essentially, do not be useless.

Ignoring the vast majority of the garbage swilling around us does not mean that we must have no interest in culture, or learning. or books, or music, or sports, or fashion, or outdoor activities, or politics, or any other thing. It does, however, require us not to chase after every wind (especially those which we know stink). It also requires us to learn to recognize "the stink" even when a little perfume has been added.

Leviticus 11:44,45; 19:2; 20:7, 1 Peter 1:16, John 15:19; 17: 14-16, Ephesians 4:14, Ecclesiastes 6:9

There Are Many Wolves Lurking About

Recently, we received the following phone call, pretending to be from the Internal Revenue Service, the United States taxation agency. I have replaced the phone number with X because you absolutely do not want to call this number.

"The reason of this call is to inform you that the IRS is filing lawsuit against you. To get more information about this case file, please call immediately on our department number, XXX-XXX-XXXX. I repeat XXX-XXX-XXXX, Thank you."

There are so many things obviously wrong with this phone call. So many RED FLAGS flapping in the wind!
1. The use of English is quite clumsy.
2, The caller offers no self-identification. All Internal Revenue Service agents identify themselves by name and by IRS employee identification number.
3. The IRS notifies taxpayers of potential problems by official mail and not by phone. The agency also will not ask for identification numbers, credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc, over the phone.
4. The IRS does not issue vague threats of legal action if there is not immediate payment. The IRS will be quite specific with dates, case numbers, contact information, etc.
5. Any IRS contact of any kind with a taxpayer will clearly identify upfront the intended recipient of the contact.
6. The female caller on the phone had a very strong vocal accent which sounded as if it were possibly Eastern European.

The phone calls of this particular scam use stolen cloned cell phone numbers with Washington, District of Columbia area codes so that if you check the number it will appear to be authentic. The Merriam -Webster online dictionary defines a scam as "a dishonest way to make money by deceiving people."

The Internal Revenue Service reports that they have received over 90,000 complaints about this fraud scheme. About 1500 people have complied with the scam and have been tricked into losing a minimum of $5,000,000 to the criminals. If you should receive a phone call like this, the IRS phone number to report the incident is 1-800-366-4484, a free phone call. This particular fraudulent activity is happening in the United States, but similar scams are probably also happening in numerous other countries as well.

Do not be deceived. This is just another confirmation that we live in a totally fallen world in need of the redemption offered by the Lord Jesus Christ.