My dad answers every single one of those calls, despite my warning when I'm sitting right next to him. Once, he said "but they're calling from a 488 number, so they must be a neighbor". He's already been scammed out of thousands of dollars in gift cards, but he keeps on going. Thankfully, the manager of the local Walgreen's store noticed the pattern of his gift card purchases and put out a store-wide alert to stop selling these to him.

What people also don't understand is that by actually answering these calls and even worse, engaging in conversation with them, you bump yourself up to the next level with your name/number being shared or sold to even more scammers. It will NEVER end as long as seniors keep falling for their games.

Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX