Finally, the widespread fraud syndicates have ruined people’s faith in one another.
A gas station employee was trying to return a woman’s wallet, and his phone calls were thought to be from a scammer — the news said that she thought he was a con artist, and yet he was trying his best to return her money back to her.
Well, it’s understandable that the general public would be wary: after all, when you see a strange number on your computer, your first thought is probably that it’s a fraudster, since accountants, doctors, teachers, and lawyers have already fallen. Alternately, you might opt to ignore or block them right away.
In the interest of public safety, AI has also intervened; the system can now identify incoming messages, trash them, and block their senders automatically.
Under Google’s clever filtering technology, even Maxis, the network to which I subscribe, could not escape. It blocked Maxis and tossed my payment notification straight into the garbage. And why is that? “Similar messages that you received were identified as spam.”
I intended to sell my stocks the other day and texted my broker multiple times, but he mistook me for a scammer and scolded me in his reply, leaving me speechless. Ultimately, I had to text him my full name and intention to get an opportunity to clarify myself.
People these days seem to only trust the numbers in their contact list.
Apart from fraud syndicates, the misuse of trust has driven a wedge between friends and family, particularly those who incessantly pressure others into purchasing insurance or joining a membership programme or a pyramid scheme.
To appease the other party and get them to stop bothering them, the wealthy will toss a few bucks their way, only to have them return the next day with yet another direct sales product.
With all the inflation happening around us, it has become more difficult to survive.
Security has also been tightened while calling certain companies, with interactive speech systems used to verify the caller’s identity. There are plenty of steps involved, such as keying in the necessary information on the phone’s keypad, inputting your IC number, waiting for an OTP (one-time password), etc. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally got the message saying the system was overloaded and I was not even put on queue, but disconnected straight away. It took multiple tries until I had to give up in the end.
Thanks to these, our phones have become an integral part of our lives. We can’t handle some things without them, and having a phone in our hands makes life bearable. On the other hand, losing our phone, is like losing a vital organ.
As a result, people start to lose faith in our society and stop caring about it. And life, has become somewhat unbearable to live in.
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