Member-only story
Goodbye, Landline. I Won’t Miss You.
Spam and robocalls have made this stalwart communication system unusable
“I called you, but I guess you didn’t hear it,” said my mother.
“This line?” I said, popping my AirPods Pros in my ears.
“No,” she said, sounding a bit concerned (or annoyed).
“Oh, you called the house phone.”
That’s when I realized my landline was unplugged. It wasn’t broken. I’d done this on purpose.
Let’s go back two weeks ago.
My home phone rang, and even though I suspected it was a spam or robocall, I glanced at the caller ID. Seeing a local area code and knowing that there were still a handful of friends, family, and local businesses that still called this number I picked up.
I knew I was in for trouble as soon as I put the handset to my ear. The sound quality was awful. It sounded like the caller was dialing from a busy factory floor.
I offered my best monotone “hello.” The caller told me there was an erroneous $720 charge on my Amazon account and that we’d have to deal with it. It was a phishing call — they hoped to gather personal information like my Amazon information, bank account, credit card details, or even Social Security number. I hung up.
