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MovingHold's avatar

I think if you pitched it less as a paid subscription and more as "If you want to support what I do, consider joining my paid tier." People do that often, though I'm not sure how effective that pitch is in generating paid subscribers.

You could also offer modest perks, like a monthly blog post that's just answering questions that paid subscribers submitted. Non-payers could see the answers too, but they wouldn't be able to ask questions.

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Monica's avatar

A local phone number is no longer useful when evaluating calls for legitimacy; numbers are too easy to spoof and some use "neighbor spoofing" specifically to make you think they're local.

If I get a call that I think *could* be legitimate (for example they get some details right) but the caller is asking for any privileged information, I hang up and call the known-good number on my bill, credit card, policy, or whatever. If there's a real problem, they can address it. If there's not, I haven't given a scammer any information (and I've made them aware of a scam impersonating them, should they want to do anything with that information).

If I were to get a call from someone claiming to be a family member or friend in trouble (the "grandma, I'm stranded halfway across the world and need money" scam for instance), my response would be "tell me a secret". (Alternatively, "have you tried Aunt Zelda?", who doesn't exist, but when I'm teaching family members about this stuff I try to keep it simple.)

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