Hateful spammers

[LMR]

It's bad enough that we have to put up with spammers at all but this morning just as I was getting ready to go and meet a friend I received a spam email purportedly from my late husband! It floored me just seeing his name in my inbox. I knew it was junk but somehow still didn't want to delete it. These people are so horrible!

[Jemiga70]

I've got those too. I'm sorry any of us have to put up with those jerks.

[KayC]

I'm so sorry, they know no regard for any of us. I despise spammers.  I got an email about spam in Neighborhood watch, I look at it and right away up pops something wanting my DOB...um, no!  You think I'm an idiot?!

[foreverhis]

For a long time, I got calls asking for John.  Often these people were pretending to be with Medicare or some other agency.  Eventually, I started just hanging up and not saying anything at all.

Honestly, the most painful one for me was a mailing from our every day bank we use for checking.  They had his death certificate on file; I had had to remove him from the safe deposit box (added my sister) and checking (so I could add my sister).  Just this past year (more than 4 years after), they sent out new ATM cards.  Sure enough, here comes a card in his name!  Not only was that incredibly painful to see, it's also dangerous to have floating around out there for identity thieves.  The weird thing was that this bank had been nothing but great about everything.  They were efficient, professional, and kind during the whole legal process.  I was upset and called.  The representative looked it up, determined that one setting on "auto send" for new cards had been missed, and then apologized profusely.  I let it go because I just can't hang on to those kind of grievances now.  Still, it really did hurt to open that envelope and see a new card in his name.

[KayC]

For years after George died, I'd get calls from a Native American group asking for donations from him.  (He was Native American).  I explained he passed, didn't matter, they continued to call, even when they saw how distressing it was.  I didn't have money with his income gone.  I don't get it.

[widower2]

Never a shortage of scum in the world. Like the spammers on this site...I've taken more than a little pleasure in calling these 800 numbers and telling them exactly what I think of them. 

A good rule of thumb (actually I follow it religiously) is: if I get an email from someone I don't recognize, I delete it (or flag as spam and the system auto deletes). If I get a call from a number I don't recognize, I decline it (if I just ignore it, they might leave a message). Not a perfect system, but it has cut back a lot on such annoyances. People will say "don't give out any personal info no matter how real it sounds"....I say why even talk to the POSs at all?  Companies like the phone company or your bank/etc will NOT call you out of the blue. Ignore any such BS.

[RichS]

Thank God for answering machines. As for e-mails, I automatically delete the ones that that say, “You have won a free_____.”