Flam, Bam, Thank You Ma'am.
Hello! Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool, where an investment of $50 for a year’s subscription guarantees you a $6,000 return every month until the year 2055. HOW ARE YOU DOING TODAY, YOUR FIRST NAME HERE?
This is after all, the famed Weekend Gene Pool, after all, in which we seek your personal anecdotes in exchange for entertaining you, plus a great deal of money, no strings attached, if you are quick enough to act now! Today’s subject is Scams You Have Fallen for, or Almost Did, or Might Have.
Not long ago, I got an email from The Geek Squad, that famous company of really friendly cyber-wizards who solve your computer problems while being so charmingly geeky you know they are honest. The email said they were about to automatically charge me my $900 for my yearly service bill, and that I had 24 hours to cancel the service by dialing a simple cancel-phone 800 number.
I was outraged. Sure, I had used the Geek Squad about 22 years ago, when I wasn’t quite certain what an “upload'“ was (I’m still not completely solid on it) but I KNOW I don’t owe them any money. I consulted Rachel, who is younger and hotter and more savvy than I am, and she looked at the email and instantly concluded, in her youthful informed opinion, that it seemed legit.
So I got on the phone with them, to rectify this unfortunate clerical situation, and Rachel nestled into the living room couch, where she does much of her best work, with a big dog’s snoot in her lap. Approximately 90 seconds passed, while I got the Geeks on the phone to untangle this simple misunderstanding. And just as I was about to surrender certain information to them, I heard something.
It arrived at 600 decibels, from the couch, amplified as though by a kettle drum, by the barrel chest of a Big Dog. It said, and I quote here verbatim:
“SCAAAAM!”
At which point I informed the Geek Person customer representative, whose name was Steve, that I was terminating this conversation inasmuch as he was a scam, at which point two things happened almost simultaneously:
It became clear for the first time that his name was probably not “Steve,” because he suddenly developed a pretty thick middle-eastern accent, and
He informed me that my computer was about to “explode.”
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So you are now aware what today’s Challenge is about. Tell us about your experiences, or the experiences of a dear and stupid friend or acquaintance. As always, send your stuff here, please.
And finally, for today’s Gene Pool Gene Poll:
See you on Tuesday. Happy Labor Day. Don’t get scammed.
Also, and I cannot avoid doing this because of my seriously ill but curable infant child, please send me money:
I got a call from my grandson recently telling me he'd had an accident while driving.
Since I don't have a grandson -- or even a son -- I led him on a merry chase for a few minutes. This is how I get my jollies these days . . .
I am a pretty savvy guy, tech-wise, for a 60-year-old. I see these "phishing" scams every single day. They come via email, via text, via phone. They are getting more and more sophisticated and frequently cause me to pause and consider whether they are legit: so I fear that one day I will fall for one of them. More importantly I wonder how the less aware masses can possibly avoid getting scammed. It's a problem.
The latest scam trend is the AI-generated voice. If you have a loved ones who post regularly on the TikTok or the Insta, their voice can be modeled and replicated by voice filter, so that somebody calling can sound like, say, your daughter who's been in an accident and totaled the car and needs you to wire money asap. So these days you need an agreed-upon safe word or a security question to ask to make sure the person is actually the person. Frightening.
The phishing scams are the main reason I use alias forwarding email addresses when I sign up for anything. When I get that email from Geek Squad, I can instantly see if it was addressed to the same email address I would've given to Geek Squad. If it's instead addressed to the email I used to subscribe to The Gene pool, then I know it's a scam.