I am a baby boomer! I am one of those people that was born between 1946 to 1964. I know you might think I was born in 1946 just because of the white hair, but look closely my friends; my face isn’t that of a 70 year old yet. Those first baby boomers are turning 70 this year. I got my AARP magazine today and Diane Keaton is turning 70. I am sure we will see all the stars as they celebrate. In this magazine there was an article that talked about how we as boomers are getting hard hit with financial scams…you know those people who call your house telling you they are collecting money for this or that charity or telling us that we are going to be prosecuted by the IRS because we owe back taxes. UMHHHHHH…I may be white headed but I did not just get off a turnip truck.

Let me tell you about the one I’ve been dealing with for over a year. I get this phone call one day and this guy, with a foreign accent says:

Man says, “Mrs. Turner, I am with Microsoft and we have detected a very bad virus on your computer. If you will give us control we can eliminate this virus on your computer from our office.”

I say, “Thank you, I have a computer tech. If I have a problem I will let him diagnose and fix my computer.”

Man says, “Well Mrs. Turner, you are an idiot if you do not let us take care of your problem, because we are the designers of your computer.

Me: I busted out laughing! Ok…well I think we have the wrong person being the idiot. I asked him, “Do you think for one minute that a true employee of Microsoft would be calling its customers idiots?” (At this point my husband is saying….”hang up, why would you argue with this guy.” My answer is that it is kind of fun.

I proceeded to tell him that I would be reporting the phone number to the Better Business Bureau and to the fraud department of the police, which I promptly did. Two days later the same guy calls me from another number to pull the same scam – Now who is the idiot!

This article in the AARP magazine reiterates, DO NOT PICK UP THE PHONE IF YOU DO NOT KNOW THE NUMBER! Sadly there are some bad people out there. The article states that an “estimated 3.3 million people – many of them seniors – were victimized by a tech-support con, at a total cost of $454 nearly every 10 seconds.”

I don’t know about you but I don’t have that kind of money to lose. Besides I have two new grandbabies that I plan on spending my extra money on.