Phone Scams and Robo Calls

 Township residents have experienced a rash of phone scam calls lately.  Some appear to be from the IRS - some appear to be from a relative or grandchild  wrongly held in jail and needing bail, or stuck in some country unable to afford the ticket home .  Many residents are duped by these calls because the perpetrators are good actors and know how to research personal details about you online, including the names of family members.

        Recently we were targeted and were surprized at how authentic they were able to be. We knew it was a scam, so we engaged them long enough for them to give us details of where and how the money should be sent, etc . We then called the police in the city that they were using as their "home base" for the story ( but of course, they could have been anywhere) they just said we should ignore it and not send money . They did not want to take any information on the scammers or even the number where I later reached them back ( which easily could have tracked the police to them I would think, given all the technology we now have .
   

       I  wish we could put the onus on the telephone company and our police to  put ample tools in place so that every scam caller is immediately tracked.  I once tried to turn in "Rachael from Cardholder services" who called me nearly everyday -  but in order for them to do anything they said they would have to tap my phone.  So I would have to lose MY privacy.   With that kind of  a system in place, the victim is victimized again.  Then they have set up a system where they could have "Rachael" annoy anyone whose phone they wanted "permission"  to tap . That is absurd .  The shoe was on the wrong foot . 
 
     If a call could be reported as spam by just pressing a certain key combination (like star 333 )  then the police and phone company could instantly dertermine where it was coming from and repeated reports on the same number would confirm the spam nature of the call and likely also the location . 
   
           The phone company makes huge profits on the use of the phones by everyone. There is no reason they could not also provide free tools that  address the abuse.  And the police could/ should be working jointly with them to find solutions that do not compromise the privacy of, nor tax the time of , the victims. 

   Large fines when perpetrators are caught would also be a good deterrent .

   

Another resident offered some good suggestions for creating awareness
    1)  the Inquirer would run a feature on these scams
   2)  AARP magazine or other senior publications might also
   3) an advertising agency’s PR department might  develop a campaign as part of their non-profit campaigns

   This site is a forum for information sharing, idea sharing and opinions.  Please feel free to send your  view  and please be sure to  tell us about any information you believe to be incorrect - write  lel@abingtoncitizens.com
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Abington Township revamped the entire Township website at the end of 2015 and broke all the links to the information. In 2017, under Richard Manfredi, someone inexperienced was assigned to redo the entire website again. The public was not asked what problems they would like to see fixed. Their new plan was not well thought out, so everything was very hard to find and there were giant paragraphs you had to slog through in order to find the pertinent one or two lines that you needed. Or if you were lucky enough to even find the meetings and agenda page, there was (and still is) a whole page of nonsense on top, so you think you're on the wrong page. Zoom limks are burrid in a giant paragraph, so people can't find them to attend the meeting. They know about these  problems - but have just decided to ignore us.... for the whole of Richard Manfredi's time here (with Tom Hecker's consent).

 Now, in 2025, we are due to get a new Manager, and there are funds put aside to, once again, upgrade the Township website. We can only hope for a fresh chance at fixing some of these things, as our Township website is the best tool we have for communication and should be an easy, user friendly site for all.

We need volunteers willing to work together to help improve the Township site that everyone has to use,  to make it functional and accessible. 

 We will be repairing our broken links in this Abington Citizens site, too, and fixing some of our many, many typo's as much as is possible. (Yes, it's quite evident that, unlike the Township, WE don't have a paid staff of 275+ or a $93 million budget).

 So...please let us know if you find broken links or typos. Send us the URL and/or and the name of the page it is on, so we can correct it.
Thanks for the help.

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