Strangers Sleeping In Your Bed and the FBI

I called the FBI in Sacramento yesterday, but I’ll get to that in a moment. First, there is a real estate agent who lives in Land Park and supplements his income by renting out his house while he sleeps in a trailer of sorts in the driveway. I don’t know the guy but I read about it in the Snewzer. He does this through airbnb, which is based in San Francisco. It works for some people but it’s not a service I would probably use when traveling unless, of course, the owners were willing to show up at breakfast and dinner to cook for me.

Renting out my house is also not something I would ever do myself because I would not like strangers sleeping in my bed. In fact, I’ve had thoughts about maybe buying a vacation home, and agents always say, well, you can rent it when you’re not using it. Why would my husband and I do that? We don’t want strangers living in our house.

Which reminds me, a few weeks ago at Nordstrom my personal shopper asked me the strangest thing. After I had selected a few dresses to ring up, she asked if it was OK to let a customer in another fitting room try on one of my dresses. Apparently, I was about to buy the last size in that dress. I’m a fairly accommodating person and I almost said sure, then the reality of the situation, well, it hit me that it possessed a sort of ick factor. No, I did not want my dress placed on somebody else’s body before she rings it up, thank you very much.

We all have our personal boundaries. I’m the kind of person who answers her phone when it rings and, if the person on the other end of the phone is an individual I have no reason to talk to, who is wasting time that could be better spent selling homes in Sacramento, for example, I don’t show a lot of patience for that individual. I am very quick to say that my number is on the do not call list, don’t ever call me again, and I block the phone number. I’m surprised my own sister can get through to me, I’m so fast to block. My phone is for business, friends and family.

This is where the FBI comes in. A guy named “Ed” called from 850-933-0098 yesterday and insisted he was representing my cellphone service provider. He demanded payment, claimed I was past due, and threatened to shut off my phone. Well, that was just plain silly. That’s not how a cellphone provider acts. He wanted to argue with me, insisting I could go to the website to see my delinquent account, and I refuted his claim so many times he hung up on me. That’s why I called the FBI.

You might think that the FBI is not the right place to report these types of crimes but they are absolutely the right place to go. A very nice FBI agent took my report. I had Googled the crook’s phone and there were many victims he had tried to rip off. After the FBI completed my report, the agent asked me to report the incident to the Federal Trade Commission as well. I complied.

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Although, I still don’t want any strangers sleeping in my bed or trying on my clothes.