Watch Out! There's a scam about...
Everyone has a tale to tell about falling foul to an online scam. Fortunately for me, my tale isn't about my misfortune but about my mother's. One day a few weeks ago I received a call at 5:45am and when I saw it was parents' number my first thought was "have they forgotten the time difference?" (they're in the UK) and my second was "Who's dead?". I was, therefore, relieved when my mum blurted she'd been scammed and was terrified I might've used her computer on my last visit home and had all my money stolen.
She had been called by a man who had opened the conversation with "Do you have a Microsoft Computer, madam?". Not knowing there is technically no such thing she said she did and, of course, it was the perfect opener for a scammer who now knew he had someone on the line with very little tech knowledge. He then told her he suspected her computer had been infected by a Trojan virus and asked her to turn on her computer so he could check it out. Which she did. He then spent an hour on the phone exploring her computer (he could see and access everything) before finally claiming that, for a small fee, he could fix the problem. Thankfully, at this point she smelled a rat and called her friend - an IT consultant - who told her to hang up and shut down her computer immediately.
My mum then cancelled all her credit cards, changed her passwords and got Dell to reset her system. All sensible steps, but she was devastated and felt totally stupid for falling for it. Had I known where the scammer was, I would've happily boarded a plane to wherever and punched the guy repeatedly. My mum is a new computer user and was very wary of getting online at first (my father is an incurable sceptic - now more than ever) but she'd overcome her fears. Then this happened! But she shouldn't feel bad - after all, it can happen to any of us. Scams are designed to be plausible and the people doing the scamming have to be charming, friendly and persuasive. I just hope they don't sleep at night.
CTN is committed to helping communities be more safety savvy and all our volunteers are asked to keep security at the forefront of their minds when helping new computer users. There is plenty of help online but I'd like to plug just one useful resource here, which is Norton's online safety site: http://us.norton.com/familyresources/ Check it out for some great reminders about what to do and what not to do and pass it on to the people you love (if for no other reason than to prevent heartstopping 5:45am calls...).
CTN is working with Symantec (makers of Norton Anti-Virus) to deliver a special event on January 26th: An Online Safety and Internet Self-Defense Expo for Seniors. The event is free to anyone 60+ and will take place at Eastern Park Apartments, one of our BTOP partner locations. For more information, contact kerri@ctnbayarea.org
