What Bugs Me and Takes Way Too Much of My Time

I am a patient guy these days. I am retired, I am older, and I don’t have as many urgent matters to deal with as I did when I was working. I look forward to talking with my children and grandchildren, and even traveling to see them. But, my life lately is being interrupted by meaningless emails, and by ridiculous phone calls that I did not ask for, do not want, and will not spend a penny on. Let me give you a few examples.

There are dozens of companies that want to buy our home. The phone calls are unsolicited and they go something like this. “Hi, this is Samantha calling. We found your house to be of interest to us. Would you be willing to sell you house?”

At first, I was interested. For the right price, we might entertain an offer, but I doubted that the company would make such an offer.

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So I respond by saying, “Do you have an offer to make on our home?” Samantha almost always responds, “We are interested in making you an offer, but first answer a few questions for me.”

This tells me that they don’t know much about my home, and they only have an old version of my house on the internet. I ask her to tell me what they know about my home. Samantha says, “It’s a four-bedroom, three-bath house.” I then tell her, “You are looking at an old internet version because that’s not our house. Our home is new, and it has five bedrooms and five baths, so you have no idea about my house. Thank you for calling,” and I hang up.

The next day, John calls offering to buy our house. I don’t want to go through the same story again, so I ask him if he has an offer he wants to make. The answer is always, “Well what price would you be willing to take to sell your house?” Sometimes I tell John it’s $3 million, sometimes I tell him that he doesn’t know about our home, and sometimes I tell him that he should be back in touch when he has an offer to make to me and my wife. That never happens, but the phone calls continue. I am now tired of them, for they are going nowhere, and we are not interested in selling our home. If you are reading this, please stop calling.

The second issue are all the emails I get telling me that I am a winner if I fill out a few questions about the company. I can be a winner at Home Depot, at Lowe’s, at CVS and a several others. Here is the email I received this morning from Walgreens: “Hello, friend, to show our gratitude to our loyal customer we made rewards for them. Complete the short survey about Walgreens to select your exclusive offer up to $100 cash value. Take 30 seconds to complete the steps and confirm your reward.”

I confirm their offer, and it takes me to a website that is not offering me $100 but offering me a variety of items I do not want. They usually say that supplies are extremely limited and there are only a few of the item left they want to give you. The item is free, but there is a shipping cost. I selected the ear headphones, and the shipping cost is $7.97. I have no idea of the quality of the ear headphones, and I don’t want them anyway. I also don’t need and don’t want the portable mini vacuum, the Wi-Fi video bulb, smart watch, robot vacuum cleaner or the Beats studio wireless noise headphones (that offer is already expired). Each has a shipping cost and none of them are free. I also do not expect to win $100. There may be a winner, but I can assure you that it will never be me.

We have put these phone numbers on a “stop this phone call list,” but they keep coming. I have taken the time to put these emails on a “opt out of the emails list,” but they keep coming. I have given up trying to eliminate these pests. We are at the point of just hanging up the phone and immediately deleting the email. It is the easiest solution.