Weapon of mass destruction

It looks like a hikers emergency whistle...and it is. This is one of mine and it usually lives in the hiking daypack I have in my four wheel drive. It's designed to be used in the advent of being lost, to bring attention to oneself so that search and rescue personnel can more easily locate a lost soul. It's loud, very loud in fact, and that's how it's supposed to be.

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A couple days ago I retrieved it from my daypack and brought it inside and placed it next to my computer. Why you ask? Well, through necessity, I've had to re-purpose it as a weapon of mass destruction.

OK, maybe mass destruction isn't the right term...Possibly I should say, scam-caller deterrent or possibly, scam-caller fuckerupperer.

You see, last night I received a call from a mobile phone number, answered and there was a foreign-type person on the other end trying to convince me my internet service was not working (I was using on my computer as she said that) and that I'd need to provide her some details to rectify the issue. She cited the internet provider I use (which was correct as it turns out) and even quoted an address where I lived...over eight years ago. Dumbass.

I don't like to be rude so tried to explain, yes calmly, that she can't help me, I don't actually have any internet services in my name, (which is true) and that she needs to hang up and go pester someone else. She didn't like that very much.

Back a while I was involved in a massive hack (the Russians apparently) along with ten million other Australians and data was released. So, since then I've had a series of scams attempted, emails, calls and even letters addressed personally to me, all with snippets of information to give credibility and all trying to get access to personal data, bank accounts and credit cards. This lady was just the latest.

So, I told her she can't help again, a little more forcefully, and she lost her fucken mind. I mean, she went fully-fucken bonkers at me.

She started by telling me she was going to take me to hell and it went down hill from there...Me? Well, I didn't take too kindly to it. I let her rant a little, even asking if we were taking the bus, a train or maybe an Uber and would there be snacks in hell. She fucken lost it for real at that point. It was sort of funny, her Indian accent going full-retard at me. I was curious so let it go for a bit.

She didn't relent, I mean she went on for a couple minutes. Keep in mind, she'd told me she was from the country's largest telco...she'd have got fired if she really was. Eventually she stopped long enough for me to call her a fucken cunt and I hung up.

She called back.

I answered but said nothing, put the phone on speaker and she went off again. Finally, about a minute later, she hung up.

She called back.

Yep, and she went off again...I hadn't said anything into the phone that time either, just answered it and put it on speaker. She went on for about two minutes then hung up. That was that.

Anyway, it was then I decided I was going to deploy the scam-caller fuckerupperer. I'd decided that was the right name for it, and it sits beside me as I type this waiting for the next scam caller, hopefully it's my friend from above.

This is how it works:

• Take call and establish it is a scam caller.
• Tell them politely they cannot help me.
• If they don't acknowledge and hang up...
• Blow that fucken whistle as hard and for as long as I can into the fucken phone.

That's it, a rather simple process. I'm pretty sure that the shrill, super-loud whistle coming through a headset in one's ear is not going to feel very nice at all...and too fucken bad!

This country, and many others, are targeted by scammers who reach out from other less fortunate countries and prey upon people scamming those not careful enough with their information and calls like this have resulted in Australians losing $3.1 Billion to those scammers in 2022. That's a lot. I'm talking about the elderly being scammed out of their life-savings through their naivety, families losing thousands and many other every day Australians from all walks of life. There's no remorse shown from those scammers and very few of them get caught. Well...there'll be a few with hearing loss by the time I'm done. And you know what... #noremorse