🚀 go-pugleaf

 At about 6PM thursday evening, I got a phone call. The operator said that 
he had a collect call to me from Charles Pooley in New York. The name was
familiar, but I didn't remember exactly why. I said I would accept the call,
but then the "operator" said the call couldn't get through because I had
the call collect option blocked. He then said he could pass the call
through if I gave him my calling card number. I said that I'd rather call 
Mr. Pooley myself, and could the "operator" give me Mr. Pooley's number.
There was a pause, then a phone number with a San Jose area code! It didn't
occur to me until later that , if the call was from New York, why was
the call-from number (408)!??!

 I remembered that Charles & I had been corresponding on a topic from 
sci.electronics. I was lucky enough to have an old message from him lying 
around, and emailed him a message about my mysterious phone call. 

 Charles Pooley replyed to me today - turns out the guy tried the same scam
on him too! But this time, the bogus operator said the collect call was
from me to Charles! Charles was also wary, and didn't give the crook his
calling card number.

 So - WATCH OUT! How this con artist chose my name & Charles' to try is 
beyond me. As far as public postings in sci.electronics, I don't think
Charles and I had exchanged more than four public postings. Most of
our correspondence has been via "private" email. 

 This has definitely raised my paranoia level. If, out of the millions of 
public postings during 1992, someone should choose two correspondents
who have exchange only a slight amount of messages.... I mean , why us?
Or, is there a "boilerroom" operation going on, with a bunch of phony
operators, armed with USENET listings - calling people with this con?

 OH! - I may have put my phone number in one of my public sci.electronics
postings - that's probably how the scamsters make their selection. Makes
sense...

 				CHILDREN BEWARE!!!

		Larry "No, you don't need my stinkin' number!!!" Ching
			larryc@shell.portal.com