No one can really screen your stuff like you.

Dear LPG,

I know that everyone who reads this post will agree that we, the British, like many other more affluent parts of this world, have become one of the nations of people who have had to get used to having sales personnel try to sell them things at every opportunity.  During the early part of this century, unsolicited phone calls, house visits, text messages and emails have become common place in our lives.  

There are two aspects of concern here.  The first is the annoying, time consuming, brain draining effects on the people who are being targeted, but worse still is that many people are taken in by what appears to them to be really genuine introductions that turn out not to be.  But for all the scams that are out there in the world, there are so many small companies run by individuals who are desperate to get a genuine product or service recognised by the general public who’s chances are being ruined by what we have learned to be suspicious of.  

The authorities and service providing companies that can, have done a lot to shield us from the first aspect mentioned. The phone companies are helping by allowing their clients to refuse calls from numbers that have targeted them in the past.  Your news post about Junk mail which was featured on February 6^th this year noted that any emails that look suspicious are now routed to a specific ‘Junk’ or ‘spam’ box, and the police and council have produced all manner of front door notices aimed at dissuading the posting of leaflets and attempts at door to door salesmen to knock.

But in my view not every person that texts or calls is a scammer,  and I have to wonder if we are missing out on some really positive information by discouraging all these people from communicating with us. 

I am not saying that we should entertain everyone who approaches us with an idea, but I think that we do have to be prepared to strike a happy medium between this option and completely ignoring everything we are exposed to. 

As we get older it is generally accepted that we lose the power to be able to work out what is genuine and what is fake, but if something is put to us that we are not sure of but sounds vaguely interesting, perhaps we should at least ask for more specific information such as the companies address and share that with people we know to get their advice.  We should do just a little follow-up research etc. before throwing the idea out altogether.

It concerns me that while many of these people are scammers, work is so much harder to come by for young people these days and there are genuine young people out there trying to make their way in a much harder employment environment than today’s pensioners ever experienced.  In post war Britain the jobs weren’t perfect, but they were there for those who wanted them.

This is just one point of view. 

UR, Lee

LPG can see where UR’s concern is founded.  If no-one was allowed to pass on their ideas, no new ideas would ever get going, but please heed the warning in the final paragraph of the post above and make sure that you find a family member who has a little time to do some research with you before you agree to anything.   

Also we would ask you to take note that, if you discover a scam, it is to everyone’s advantage if you pass the details on to the police’s Action Fraud department regardless of the way that you were approached.  Their job is to collate information so build cases against scammers and their telephone number is 0300 123 2040.

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