Usually, when the phone rings at the ISJL office, Lynda (AKA “The Voice of the ISJL) answers with a perky, jovial greeting: “Shalom, Institute of Southern Jewish Life!”
This week, her voice is just a little less perky. The greeting is just a little more grating. And the culprit is something called Caller ID Spoofing.
Somewhere, somehow, some spammer has co-opted the ISJL’s main line number and is using it to call people – a lot of people – and request their credit card information, telling them their debit card has been cancelled and they need to verify their information.
It’s criminal.
It’s awful.
And it also means our phone has been ringing off the hook. Won’t. Stop. Ringing!
When people get this scam of a message, many of them have re-dialed the number to find out what’s going on, or inform us of the issue, or scold us for trying to scam them, not realizing that we had nothing to do with placing the call… and while all of the staff has had to pitch in answering these phone calls, it’s The Voice of the ISJL who continues to field most of them.
The calls are coming in from Pennsylvania, Kansas, Northern Virginia – and most people who call in, are doubly surprised at the greeting they get when they call. They’re surprised at the organization’s name (The Institute of Southern Jewish… what?) and they’re surprised at Lynda’s warm, distinctly Southern dialect.
What we’ve been surprised about here is that despite how angry some people are when they first call us, once we’ve explained the situation they’re usually quite kind. Some have even apologized to us, commenting about how awful this must be to deal with and how they hope it’ll be resolved soon. It’s been a good way to restore our faith in humanity – especially in the face of knowing these scammers are trying to take advantage of the folks calling us, and using our long-standing number to do so.
We’ve filed all sorts of reports with the FCC and relevant authorities. Hopefully, the calls will stop soon, the scammers will be caught, and no innocent folks will have their credit sullied or any funds stolen. In the meantime, we’re grateful for the kind exchanges with strangers, and their sympathy to this unexpected plight of the week – which has yielded literally hundreds of nonstop phone calls, all day today and yesterday. It’s amazing everyone is still as chipper as they are, here and on the phone.
It’s probably Lynda’s legendary Voice of the ISJL that’s enabling us all to take it in stride.
Shalom, Institute of Southern Jewish Life!
