JW phone calls

General Discussion
1

Just noticed that we had two messages on our home voicemail. As we have the phone on silent, and wouldn’t pick up anyway, most of the spammy / phishing / cold calls we do get hang up immediately. Since we added our number to bloctel, the number of calls has shrivelled to virtually zero. We’re also supposed to be on Liste Rouge, so not sure how they got our number.

So, somewhat surprised to actually have two messages a week apart, I had a listen. The first was from a woman so old and frail sounding, I genuinely thought she might either have Alzheimer’s or was about to croak, and immediately thought of my neighbours, but none of them sounded like the voice of this woman. To make matters worse, she was clearly French, but trying and failing rather spectacularly to communicate her message in English (our voicemail answer message is in English). Needless to say, all she could utter in the end was “GW.org”.

The second message was also in English, again spoken by a non-native speaker, at a guess Belgian or French or Swiss, but was clearer to the extent that she apologized for the previous person’s call, and that I should go and look up a website called “gw.org”, which it turns out, she meant “jw.org”, if I wanted to understand what was going on in world from a not-for-profit organisation. I was thinking, ok, kind of weird in a rapturous “come into my parlour” kind of way, but then she dropped the “Jesus” word into the conversation, and I instantly knew who it was behind the call.

This is a first for me, I’ve never been coldcalled by the Jehovah Witnesses. I find it especially more irksome that our home phone number, which we give to no one, never use for any kind of signups or internet communication, has somehow fallen into the hands of proselytists preying on the vulnerable.

Anyway, they’re back and on the prowl.

2

They’ve given up personal calls since COVID, they do it all on the telephone now, acc to my local JW ex-doorstepper who is v nice, even though she’s never going to convert me I feel sorry for her getting rude reactions from people. I don’t want any telephone calls though.

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3

I was once sat on a bench outside a French supermarket, waiting for my wife, when a woman came up to me speaking very rapid French and thrust a carte de visite at me. It all seemed rather odd, not least as she seemed rather conservatively dressed for what I’d initially taken her to be.

Then, reading the card it dawned…

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We had a visit the other day. Madame spoke to the gent, and said she was surprised in a laïc country that they could cold-call. Apparently there was a court case which determined the law of 1905 did not prohibit it.

5

“J” and “G” - nightmare! My surname starts with a “J” and OH has “G” in his. After 19 years of practising it, I have no problem!

I’ve said before, I really like talking to the JW - why the rudeness? They are easy to talk to, I practise my French, they practise their English. Before COVID a sweet elderly couple used to drop by. I’d chat, they’d give me a leaflet and they ask me to read it, after they’ve left I drop it in the bin - how hard is that?

What courage, to do what they do/did, day in day out and largely get abuse.

On the phone, I never pick up these days except when I’m expecting a courier, so I guess that means we will never chat again.

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I still have to think of the music channel NRJ (sounds like “Energy” - simple mnemonic for a simpleton :wink: ) so there’s always a delay on the line when either letter comes up.

7

I’ve actually never been rude to them when accosted in the street. The first time I had a knock on the door was in Germany, and had a very long conversation (with two of them in those days) stood on the doorstep, in German. My then French wife of the time was livid because I was an argumentative b€st€rd (still am, to some extent) and it went on forever (in her opinion) and she just wanted rid.

I object to them leaving messages on a phone number they’re not supposed to even have though, in the same way as a solar panel salesman, but worse because at least the solar panel salesman only wants my money.

8

I think of “JJMS” said gee-gee-em-es. There used to be a TV program called ”Jeune Jolie Mais Seule” on French TV that announced its name as such. So the J is said gee.

It was a terrible schmaltzy program that featured attractive sympathetic young people who were single and looking for love and it was totally addictive.

There’s always a long pause while I remember JJMS, when there’s a J in the reference number of yet another parcel the local delivery subcontractor has screwed up and I have to say it on the phone.

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What do the JWs want to do? They want to save your soul. In this day and age who cares about someone other than themselves?

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They want to get your money so they can invest it in real estate and investment portfolios. That’s what they want to do. They’re spending hundreds of millions building a very nice movie studio complex that Hollywood would be jealous of as we speak, at a time when the likes of Marvel is creating movies using one small sound stage with giant screens, and someone else’s computer power for effects, which is a little odd for an organisation that claims we’re in the last days before Armageddon.

Let’s not forget that the Watchtower Bible and Tract society was always a publishing company masquerading as a religion. It’s literally there in the name, hence the need to shift so much paper material, it was for many years what bankrolled the whole operation. Any sensible religion wanting to evangelise would have given their publications away free of charge from day one, but not Watchtower, they charged their own members who were then expected to go out and sell them until recently (the Jimmy Swaggert court case in the US I think in the 90s which ruled that VAT was chargeable on religious material sales forced them to change) then moved to a “suggested donation” model so still really charged. It’s always been what today we’d call an MLM (multi level marketing) scam dressed up as a doomsday cult.

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11

I beg to disagree. I am a friend of the JWS. I followed their Bible studies which was free. The books and pamphlets were given to me free. I was asked to donate to the kingdom hall but was never forced to do it. I disagreed with their idea of only the elders, who were men only. They decided on everything the followers did.

Also as a Christian I was baptised. So did not want to be baptised again by them. Not being baptised was a nono. So I left their kingdom hall. Of course this is in France, not in the US.

12

This doesn’t surprise me. A relative married a man who was a JW and became one herself.

Late in life, she was alone, widowed with no children and had stage 4 cancer. The JWs kept coming to see her and wanted her to sign a will leaving everything to them. She had started living on the ground floor because of her health and the JWs were seen throwing furniture and possessions out of the first floor windows. After she died the first floor was virtually empty and all of the jewellery was gone.

For reasons we never found out, she never signed the JW will and as she died intestate, everything went to four cousins who were her nearest relatives. The cousin who dealt with the estate (I helped her which is why I know so much) contacted one of the main men with the local JWs and asked if they would like to hold the funeral or speak at one organised by my relative. They refused point blank.

So we had the funeral at the crematorium and a very few JWs attended. We could only assume that they were annoyed at not getting hold of the estate.

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