When the caller asks if I can hear him, I might say, "I hear you." That
statement cannot be used as an authorization. It occurred to me that I
might be able to "draw the caller out" by saying "no" when he asks that
question. Then I'd find out where he goes from there; but at no point would
I say "yes."
We still have land-line phones in our house, and most of the apps to kill
robocalls are for cell phones. I wish someone could come up with an app
that would work on our phones. I've heard about a few hardware devices that
are preprogrammed to reject a large group of those robocalls and scam calls;
I plan to call Panasonic about one of those devices to ask how easy it would
be for a totally-blind person to put one of their units in operation without
sighted assistance. I would also ask how easy it is for a blind person to
enter the number for an "acceptable caller" so that we would receive calls
from the doctors who we see (doctors' offices are more and more relying on
robocall systems to give reminders of an upcoming appointment, and the
robocall requires you to press a key to either confirm that you will be
there or to cancel or change the date of that appointment). If you block
all robocalls, you might miss or reject an important appointment with one of
your medical providers. Of course, I hate robocalls in general, especially
a new "breed" of robocalls from a pharmacy telling me first about their
protection and dealing with COVID-19 and eventually that they have a
prescription ready for me to pick up (but I already knew that because I had
called to request a refill).
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Pat Byrne (Redacted sender "k9jau" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2020 5:01 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Fake Messages
I respond with something that can never, never ever be used as an agreement!
Pat byrneAt 04:29 PM 7/25/2020, you wrote:
I think you're right.for the grant.
It's going to take someone, or a group of someones who have influence
and money in the disability community that internalizes how freeing the
optacon can be, then hops on the bandwagon.
Also, regarding scammers, at some point, they will be asking for
personal information. Or, more insidious, will verify all of your
personal info for you, only needing the teeny tiny CVV code on your card.
Another thing NOT to do is when they say something like, "Can you hear
me okay," don't say anything, and certainly not a Yes, because they
record that response and insert the snippet into authorization
information that will give them the door into your info, because they
have your recorded affirmation.
Sometimes, the only thing I say is "Do not call." Then, the recorded
scammer very rapidly gives you a number to punch for do not call, which
you could do, but best not to punch anything on those calls, or say
anything on those calls.
There is an app on the Android play store, I think it is called
RoboKiller, and, from within the settings, you can have various audio
scenarios answer your phone for you. In other words, when your phone
answers, the scammer may hear someone talking to himself on a sailboat
in the middle of the ocean, or someone trying to get to sleep, or any
number of crazy scenarios that can prank their call.
Judy
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of David Plumlee (Redacted sender "knobman" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2020 10:35 AM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Fake Messages
I also want to warn all listers about a telephone-based scam which has
come twice to our house on two different phone calls. On one call, a
fellow said that he was offering me a grant of $80,000 which I could
use for anything I want, tax free, coming from something he called a
reinvestment and recovery act. I knew that nobody, especially the U.S.
Government, is out there to give me EIGHTY THOUSAND DOLLARS with no
strings attached! I recorded the information he gave me on how to apply
When I discussed the call with Debbie, she agreed that there has to beapproach was to leave both of them alone!
a "hook" somewhere by which the scammer would get money from us while
providing us nothing; or maybe the scam was to get us involved with
some crooks stealing government money. We stayed out of it!
A few days ago, I received a call from a woman supposedly offering me a
grant of $15,000. Having already discussed this kind of scam with
Debbie, I told the woman on the phone that nobody is out there to give
us that amount of money and that we are not interested. I then
immediately hung up the phone. More than likely, the phone numbers
from both of the callers were spoofed and therefore untraceable. The
calls probably came from someone overseas. I haven't yet figured out
how the scamming group was going to get money while they were giving
money to me with no requirement that I pay any kind of fee to get it;
but I'm sure there is a "hook" somewhere in those deals, and our best
I take time on this list to tell of these scams because I wouldn't wantdevice which has been so helpful to us.
any of us to think, if we got such a call, that we could apply for a
grant in order to provide funds for research and development of a new
Optacon. Most of us are in no position to get scammed out of our own
limited funds, and it is sad indeed that scammers have apparently
discovered this list and sent some fake messages, perhaps "feelers" to
see if anyone will offer to advance some money "down the rat hole." I
also share the opinion that we cannot expect a new Optacon anytime soon
- and maybe not at all. If I understand "the way the wind blows" these
days, education of young blind children has moved so far into
recordings and computerized speech that nobody will seriously look at the
R&D.
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
On Behalf Of Carolyn
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2020 9:19 AM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Fake Messages
That was why in my post, I said that $10,000 was a lot to an
individual, but not to a foundation or the like, and not much money for
research.
-----Original Message-----
From: optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:optacon-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Noel Runyan
Sent: Friday, July 24, 2020 6:31 PM
To: optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; optacon-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [optacon-l] Re: Fake Messages
Catherine and listers,
I will start by echoing a strong warning about getting your hopes up
for a new Optacon 3 product anytime soon, and I encourage you to be
extremely suspicious about anyone asking for money to fund new Optacon
With that said, I hasten to point out that Charles Pond's recentago.
messages to this list were not asking for money, although he did state
that he needed
$10,000 to $13,000 in order to finish his new Optacon display development.
Clearly, that relatively small sum of funding would not come anywhere
near the many hundreds of thousands of dollars needed to develop the
rest of an Optacon 3 device, assuming the tactile display development
portion was successful and working well.
I also encourage us all to be extremely careful when making and sharing
assumptions or suspicions about the poor health or death of individuals.
Does anyone on this list have any actual proof that Charles Pond is
truly deceased, or do we only have unsupported assumptions and
irresponsible gossip?
In two of his recent posts to this Optacon list, Charles Pond mentioned
being his brother and writing for Charles.
These appeared to me to be the kind of ill advised humor one might
expect from someone who has been falsely proclaimed to be deceased.
In the last several months, I have had two direct Email exchanges with
Charles, and they both were very consistent with his former writing
style and technical issues. He mentioned Halbach magnetic arrays, a
technical term for a special kind of magnet I told him about several years
I am sure that a poser would not have known to use such a uniqueto:
technical reference in Optacon discussions with me.
Certainly, I am comfortably convinced that Charles Pond, the one we've
heard from in the past, is still alive and has recovered enough from
his severe health problems to be able to continue some discussions
about Optacon tactile displays.
However, I am also convinced that we have not had independent
observation of and confirmation of any working prototypes of Charles's
Optacon 3 tactile array devices, something that causes most experts in
the field to have serious doubts about its performance and viability.
To be taken seriously by researchers in the tactile display field,
Charles Pond will need to be more open and willing to share details of
his design concepts and any prototypes.
Sincerely,
Noel
-
Noel H. Runyan
Phone: 1-408-866-7564
Email: Noel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-
At 11:35 PM 7/23/2020, Catherine Thomas wrote:
I think someone is having a joke at the list's expense. Idoubt vey
seriously that the messages are authentically from Charles.The english
is wrong, the writing style does not match and the tone iswrong. If
anyone receives any private requests for funds claiming tobe from
Charles, just delete them. This is only my opinion based onyears of reading Charles'
messages.----------
Catherine
------------------------------------------------------
-Catherine Thomas
braille@xxxxxxxxx /
-----------------------------------------------------------
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