My wife was trying to make a credit card payment a few days ago when her computer locked up. She couldn’t go forward and she couldn’t go backward.
A message appeared in the middle of the screen which was more than a little spooky.
“Your IP address was used without your knowledge or consent to visit websites that contain identity-theft virus,” a sonorous pre-recorded (and probably computer-generated) voice told her. “To unlock the computer, please call support immediately. Please do not attempt to shut down your computer. Doing so could result in data loss. The computer lock is aimed at stopping illegal activity.”
There’s a lot to unpack here, but I’ll cut to the chase. I took a video of the laptop and the monotone narration and posted it on Facebook. I have friends there, and while they sometimes drive me crazy, sometimes they know more than I do.
This was one of those times.
Bill Horan and Rick Henly told me to shut it off anyway. Barry Gordon said to shut off our Wi-Fi and take additional steps. My sister-in-law, Karen Schoonover, said no matter what else we do, do not call that phone number.
We didn’t. We did follow Bill and Rick’s advice and shut the thing off, anyway. We restarted the laptop and thus far, all is well in the Schultz household and in our little corner of the internet.
Whew.
There’s some interesting things to unpack here:
• The obvious lack of human interaction. They don’t want to talk to us in person (more about that in a second) so they give us this pre-recorded scare show. Hmmm.
• The fake politeness. Twice during the warning they say “please.” How nice of them.
• How in the world did they know that this was done “without (her) knowledge”? Maybe she wanted to follow Lou Reed’s lead and “take a walk on the wild side.”
That bit of nonsense was followed a few days later by a call from a Huntington phone number telling Susan she needed a new Medicare card. No she didn’t, and she knew she didn’t. She hung up.
Moments later she got another phone call, this one from California. It was the same guy. “Why did you hang up on me?” he asked, irritation showing in his (heavily-accented) voice.
As I remember, she hung up on him again. I love that woman.
We’re well into our senior citizenhood, and we’re probably a little more savvy about the internet than others our age. I’m concerned for us and I’m really concerned for others.
I’ve got to look into this more. There’s a problem, and I want to help.
daves@news-banner.com
