Several days ago, my phone rang at 6 a.m. The caller identified himself as a neighbor of mine. He said he had seen three men dressed in black snooping around my house “earlier in the day.”

When I asked who he was, he replied, “Mike, your neighber from McKruit Lane.” He said he’d call back if he saw them again. Then he hung up.

The caller was not a kid pulling a prank, rather an adult and well-spoken with a distinctive accent.

I have no neighbors with that accent, nor any “Mike” neighbors, and the call made no sense at 6 in the morning.

The more I thought about it, the more it smelled like a setup to scare me into getting a security service.

My hunch was correct.

Two days later, I was contacted by a home security service from Dallas. Of course, they denied any such scare tactics, but wow, what a coincidence.

Has anyone else out there gotten a scare-tactic phone call like this?