A Game Of Phones
by Dave Collins
I received a
call from a man with a thick accent informing me
that my computer had recently came under a severe
security threat. This had to be a scam and I
should have hung up but played along just to see
what would happen. He assured me that he wasn’t
selling anything and there’d be no cost. He
directed me to go to my computer where I was to
find the key identified as Ctrl and another
labeled Alt and then press those to keys at the
same time along with the digit 7. It may not have
been this exact combination but something like it. He
asked if I was doing that. I replied yes.
He then asked
if I had a new screen on the computer. I
replied no. He advised trying it again. I
told him I did with the same results. A pause on
his end of the phone followed, which I quickly
capitalized on. I asked if he would call me back
after I did a disk clean up and run the
defragmentation program. Yes, he’d
happy to, said goodbye and hung up. The
conversation on my end had been fictitious. I’d
been standing on a stepladder waxing the top of
my Jeep the whole time. I lied, of course,
but so did he. That kind of makes us even. I
may have won the game by a notch though. While I
had him on the phone he wasn’t calling
someone else who may have fallen for this scheme,
whatever it was.
That should
have been the end of the story, but wasn’t.
Two days later
came a call from the same caller, same accent,
which began with the same pitch about computer
security with mine being at a particularly high
risk. Am I at home? Yes. Actually
I was in the Wal-Mart cracker isle searching for
a box of Cheez-its, the kind with the Scrabble
letters on them. I assured him that I had no
concerns about any risks or computers. He
began a lecture about how the security protection
one buys doesn’t cover everything. I
had to interrupt his monolog.
“Sir”,
I said. “I don’t even have a
computer. I heard those things cause cancer and
wouldn’t have one in my house. Besides that,
it might kill my dog.”
This time, I
received no polite goodbye, only a click. I doubt
he’ll call again, though I kind of wish he
would. If he did I’d take on the role
of a senior with a few memory problems and a lot
of money. I’d want his product or
service in the worst way but couldn’t quite
get the credit card information right even after
six or seven tries. It might be an interesting
way to spend forty-five minutes or so and get the
material for my next story.
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