How do people do it? How do they have the audacity to call someone up (someone like their mother, grandmother, sister, aunt....) and lie and steal from them? Take up hours of your time on repairing a monster of their own making, convincing you that your computer will CRASH AND BURN with everything lost. They convince you that this is your own fault, that you were unprotected from "these hackers", and you must pay them to fix it.
It all started one beautiful morning my computer started wailing and sending out big red letters saying DON'T TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER, YOU HAVE BEEN HACKED. CALL THIS NUMBER IMMMEDIATELY. DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER!!!! Knowing how much work I had left to do, I stupidly called. And spent the next 2 hours arguing with some...person.. somewhere in another world. A world where cheating people and harrassing them is A-OK. And after hours of fear of losing all my data (according to this ...person) I fork up a ridiculous amount of credit card debt just to get off the phone. And it did not end there. They got their money, now they want you to talk to their "billing expert". And after that a young woman (whose mother would be sooo ashamed) ask you how was the service and you explain in clear, precise English that it was awful. And after you get off this most humiliating phone experience all that is left to do is to cry. Cry because you just paid these persons to allow them control of your computer and nearly your accounts. And it's not over.
They let you know that they have to refund all your money to you because the Better Business Bureau requires them to refund you because of a computer glitch on their end and they must refund you . And it begins again, the lengthy phone call, the hacking and suddenly YOU KNOW it is BS and you turn all the connections to them off and the ...person..starts calling you a f**king b**ch. And you hang up, only to have them call you back as though they are a "manager" and soon, they are back to calling you names. You hang up. And you stop answering and they continue to call everyday often and then it peters off and you take your computer to a reputable computer repair person who looks at you like you're dumb for not knowing right away you were being screwed.
It is a painful experience and that is why I write about it. I consider myself pretty tech savvy and I fell for it. All the alarms going off with sounds I have never heard come from my computer really put me on edge. The correct thing to have done (against what my computer was screaming at me) is TURN IT OFF. Hard exit, hold down the off button until it dies and call a reputable computer geek.
These persons are well spoken little monsters, it was easy to fall into conversation with them and to miss the signs that they were not legit. It was a painful learning experience that I would not wish on anyone (except these persons). And so I share it with you.
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